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THE WHITE QUEEN OF OKOYONG 



THE STORY OF MARY SLESSOR 
FOR YOUNG PEOPLE 

THE WHITE QUEEN 
OF OKOYONG 



A TRUE STORY OF ADVENTURE 
HEROISM AND FAITH 



W; P. LIVINGSTONE 

AOTHOB OF "MARY SLESSOR OF CALABAR" 



ILLUSTRATED 



NEW YORK 
GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY 



^B^ 3 <* z s 

.A/4, SC3j 



COPYRIGHT, 191 7, 
BY GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY 




PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 



©CI.A455484 



TO 

ALL GIRLS AND BOYS 

WHO ARE 

LOOKING FORWARD 

AND 
DREAMING DREAMS 



'She left all and followed Him." 



CONTENTS 



PAGE 

Chief Dates in Miss Slessor's Life xi 

CHAPTER I 

Tells how a little girl lived in a lowly home, and played, and 
dreamed dreams, and how a dark shadow came into her 
life and made her unhappy; how when she grew older she 
went into a factory and learned to weave, and how in her 
spare minutes she taught herself many things, and worked 
amongst wild boys; and how she was sent to Africa . . i 

CHAPTER II 

How our heroine sailed away to a golden land of sunshine across 
the sea; how she found that under all the beauty there 
were terrible things which made life a misery to the dark- 
skinned natives; how she began to fight their evil ideas 
and ways and to rescue little children from death; how, 
after losing all her loved ones, she took a little twin-girl 
to her heart, and how she grew strong and calm and brave 22 

CHAPTER III 

Ma's great adventure: how she went up-river by herself in a 
canoe and lived in a forest amongst a savage tribe; how 
she fought their terrible customs and saved many lives; 
how she built a hut for herself and then a church, and how 
she took a band of the wild warriors down to the coast 
and got them to be friends with the people who had 
always been their sworn enemies 45 



viii CONTENTS 

CHAPTER IV 

PAGE 

Stories of how Ma kept an armed mob at bay and saved the 
lives of a number of men and women; how in answer to a 
secret warning she tramped a long distance in the dark to 
stop a war; how she slept by a camp-fire in the heart of 
the forest, and how she became a British Consul and 
ruled Okoyong like a Queen 69 



CHAPTER V 

Ma's great love for children; her rescue of outcast twins from 
death; the story of little Susie, the pet of the household; 
and something about a new kind of birthday that came 
oftener than once a year 90 

CHAPTER VI 

How the Queen of Okoyong brought a high British official to 
talk to the people; how she left her nice home and went 
to live in a little shed; how she buried a chief at midnight; 
how she took four black girls to Scotland, and afterwards 
spent three very lonely years in the forest 105 

CHAPTER VII 

Tells of a country of mystery and a clever tribe who were 
slave-hunters and cannibals, and how they were fought 
and defeated by Government soldiers; how Ma went 
amongst them, sailing through fairyland, and how she 
began to bring them to the feet of Jesus 120 



CHAPTER VIII 

Ma learns to ride a bicycle and goes pioneering; the Govern- 
ment makes her a Judge again and she rules the people; 



CONTENTS ix 

PAGE 

stories of the Court, and of her last visit to Scotland with 
a black boy as maid-of -all- work; and something about a 
beautiful dream which she dreamed when she returned, 
and a cow and a yellow cat 140 



CHAPTER IX 

Ma goes farther up the Creek and settles in a heathen town in 
the wilds; she enters into happy friendships with young 
people in Scotland; has a holiday in a beautiful island, 
where she makes a secret compact with a lame boy; and 
is given a Royal Cross for the heroic work she has done . . 163 



CHAPTER X 

This chapter tells how Ma became a gypsy again and lived on 
a hill-top, and how after a hard fight she won a new region 
for Jesus; gives some notes from her diary and letters to 
little friends at home, and pictures her amongst her 
treasures 183 



CHAPTER XI 

What happened when the Great War broke out. Ma's last 
voyage down the Creek; how her life-long dream came 
true 198 



INDEX 207 



My life, my all, Lord, I entreat, 
Take, and use, and make replete 

With the love and patience sweet 
That made Thy life so complete. 

Mary Slessor. 



CHIEF DATES IN MISS SLESSOR'S 
LIFE 



1848. Born at Gilcomston, Aberdeen, December 2. 

1856. Family went to Dundee. 8 

1859. Began work in a factory. II 

1876. Appointed by United Presbyterian Church to Calabar 

as missionary teacher, and sailed. 28 

1879. Paid her first visit home. 31 

1880. In charge at Old Town. 32 
1883. Second visit home with Janie. 35 

1885. In Creek Town. 37 

1886. Death of her mother and sister (Janie). 38 
1888. Entered Okoyong alone. 40 

1 89 1. Third visit home with Janie. 43 

1892. Made Government Agent in Okoyong 44 
1898. Fourth visit home, with Janie, Alice, Maggie, and Mary. 50 
1900. Union of United Presbyterian and Free Churches as 

United Free Church. 52 

1902. Pioneering in Enyong Creek. 54 

1903. Started a Mission at Itu. Reached Arochuku. 55 

1904. Settled at Itu. 56 

1905. Settled at Ikotobong. 57 
Appointed Vice-President of Native Court. 

xi 



xii CHIEF DATES IN MISS SLESSOR'S LIFE 

YEAR AGE 

1907. Fifth visit home with Dan. 59 
Settled at Use. 

1908. Began a home for women and girla. 60 

1909. Gave up Court work. 61 

1910. Began work at Ikpe. 62 

1912. Holiday at Grand Canary. 64 

1913. Visit to Okoyong. 65 
Received Royal Medal. 

Began work at Odoro Ikpe. 

1914. Last illness, August. 65 

1915. Died at Use, January 13. 66 
Mary Slessor Memorial Home decided on by Women's 

Foreign Mission Committee. 

1916. Issue of Appeal for £5000 for upkeep of Memorial 

Home and Missionary. 



THE WHITE QUEEN OF OKOYONG 



FEBRUARY 

Wednesday 19 11 



Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, and 
a light unto my path. Ps. cxix: 105. 

It is a "lamp" — not a blazing sun. not 
even a lighthouse, but a plain, common 
lamp or lantern which one can carry 
about in the hand. It is a lamp unto 
the "feet," not throwing its beams afar, 
nor illuminating a hemisphere, but shin- 
ing only on one little bit of dusty road 
on which the pilgrim's feet are walking. 
The duty for the moment is always clear 
and that is as far as we need concern 
ourselves; for when we do the little 
that is clear we shall carry the light on, 
and it will shine upon the next moment's 
step. — J. R. Miller. 




Wishart Church, Dundee. 



CHAPTER I 



Tells how a little girl lived in a lowly home, and played, 
and dreamed dreams, and how a dark shadow came into 
her life and made her unhappy; how when she grew older 
she went into a factory and learned to weave, and how in 
her spare minutes she taught herself many things, and 
worked amongst wild boys; and how she was sent to Africa. 

One cold day in December, in the city of Aberdeen, 
a baby girl was carried by her mother into a church 
to be enrolled in the Kingdom of Jesus and given 
a name. As the minister went through the tender 
and beautiful ceremony the people in the pews 
looked at the tiny form in her robes of white, and 
thought of the long years that lay before her and 
wondered what she would become, because every 
girl and boy is like a shut casket full of mystery 
and promise and hope. No one knows what gifts 
may lie hidden within them, and what great and 



2 THE WHITE QUEEN OF OKOYONG 

surprising things they may do when they grow up 
and go out into the world. 

Then the minister sprinkled a little water on the 
face of the child and called her "Mary Slessor," 
and she was carried out and wrapped up carefully 
again and taken home. 

It was not a very fine house into which Mary 
had been born, for her father, who was a shoemaker, 
did not earn much money; but her mother, a sweet 
and gentle woman, worked hard to keep it clean 
and tidy, and love makes even the poorest place 
sunshiny and warm. When Mary was able to run 
about she played a great deal with her brother 
Robert, who was older than she, but she liked to 
help her mother too: indeed she seemed to be 
fonder of doing things for others than for herself. 
She did not need dolls, for more babies came into 
the home, and she used to nurse them and dress 
them and hush them to sleep. 

She was very good at make-believe, and one of 
her games was to sit in a corner and pretend that 
she was keeping school. If you had listened to her 
you would have found that the pupils she was busy 
teaching and keeping in order were children with 
skins as black as coal. The reason was this : Her 
mother took a great interest in all she heard on 
Sundays about the dark lands beyond the seas 
where millions of people had never heard of Jesus. 
The church to which she belonged, the United 



THE WHITE QUEEN OF OKOYONG & 

Presbyterian Church, had sent out many brave men 
and women to various parts of the world to fight 
the evils of heathenism, and a new Mission had just 
begun amongst a savage race in a wild country 
called Calabar in West Africa, and every one in 
Scotland was talking about it and the perils and 
hardships of the missionaries. Mrs. Slessor used to 
come home with all the news about the work, and 
the children would gather about her knees and 
listen to stories of the strange cruel customs of 
the natives, and how they killed the twin-babies, 
until their eyes grew big and round, and their 
hearts raced with fear, and they snuggled close to 
her side. 

Mary was very sorry for these helpless bush- 
children, and often thought about them, and that 
was why she made them her play-scholars. She 
dreamed, too, of going out some day to that terrible 
land and saving the lives of the twinnies, and some- 
times she would look up and say : 

"Mother, I want to be a missionary and go out 
and teach the black boys and girls — real ways." 

Then Robert would retort in the tone that boys 
often use to their sisters : 

"But you're only a girl, and girls can't be mis- 
sionaries. I'm going to be one and you can come 
out with me, and if you're good I may let you up 
into my pulpit beside me." 

Mrs. Slessor was amused at their talk, and well 



4 THE WHITE QUEEN OF OKOYONG 

pleased too, for she had a longing that her boy, 
should work abroad in the service of Jesus when he 
became a man. But that was not to be, for soon 
afterwards Robert fell ill and died, so Mary became 
the eldest. 

A dark shadow, darker than death, gathered over 
the home. Mr. Slessor learned the habit of taking 
strong drink and became a slave to it, and he began 
to spend a large part of his money in the public- 
house, and his wife and children had not the comfort 
they ought to have had. Matters became so bad 
that something had to be done. It was thought 
that if Mr. Slessor could be got away from the bad 
companions who led him astray, he might do better. 
So the home was broken up, and the family jour- 
neyed to Dundee, the busy smoky town on the River 
Tay, where there were many large mills and facto- 
ries, and here, for a time, they lived in a little house 
with a bit of garden in front. That garden was at 
first a delight to Mary, but afterwards she lost her 
pleasure in it, for her father used to dig in it on 
Sunday, and make people think he did not love 
God's Day. 

She was now old enough to look after the younger 
children, and very well she did it. Often she took 
them long walks, climbing the steep streets to see 
the green fields, or going down to feel the fresh 
smell of the sea. Sometimes her mother gave her 
a sixpence, and they went and had a ride on the 



THE WHITE QUEEN OF OKOYONG 5 

merry-go-round. It was the custom then for girls 
and boys to go bare-footed in the summer, and 
Mary liked it so much that she never afterwards 
cared to wear shoes and stockings. 

On Sundays they all trotted away to church, 
clean and sweet, each with a peppermint to suck 
during the sermon, and afterwards they went to 
Sunday School. As a rule Mary was good and 
obedient, though, like most girls, she sometimes 
got into trouble. Her hair was reddish then, 
and her brothers would tease her and call her 
"Carrots," and she did not like that. She loved 
a prank too, and was sometimes naughty. Once 
or twice she played truant from the Sunday 
School. She was always very vexed afterwards, 
for she could not bear to see her mother's face 
when she heard of her wrong-doing — it was so 
white and sad. The quiet little mother did not 
punish her: she would draw her instead into a 
room and kneel down and pray for her. "Oh, 
mother!" Mary would say, "I would rather you 
whip me !" 

But all that soon passed away, for she had been 
dreaming another dream, a very sweet one, which 
always set her heart a-longing and a-thrilling, and 
it now came true and changed her life. It was the 
biggest thing and the happiest that ever happened 
to her. She gave her heart to Jesus. Very shyly 
one night she crept up to her mother, nestled close 



6 THE WHITE QUEEN OF OKOYONG 



to her, and laid her head on her knee, and then 
whispered the wonderful news. "I'll try, mother," 
she said, "to be a good girl and a comfort to you." 
Her mother was filled with joy, and both went 
about for long afterwards singing 
in their hearts. If only the shadow 
would lift! 

But it settled down more darkly 
than ever. We can change the 
place where we stay and wander 
far, but it is not so easy to change 
our habits. Mr. Slessor was now 
bringing in so little money that his 
wife was forced to go and work in 
one of the mills in order to buy 
food and clothes for the children. 
Mary became the little house- 
mother, and how busy her hands 
and feet were, how early she was 
up, and how late she tumbled into 
bed, and how bravely she met all 
her troubles ! Tears might steal into her eyes when 
she felt faint and hungry, but it was always a bright 
and smiling face that welcomed the tired mother 
home at night. 

Gloomier grew the shadow. More money was 
needed to keep the home, and Mary, a slim girl of 
eleven, was the next to go out and become a bread- 
winner. One morning she went into a big factory 




JK.. 



The Little House 
Mother. 



THE WHITE QUEEN OF OKOYONG 7 

and stood in the midst of machines and wheels and 
whirling belts, and at first was bewildered and a 
little afraid. But she was only allowed to stay for 
half a day : the other half she had to go to a school 
in the works where the girls were taught to read 
and write and count. She was fond of the reading, 
but did not like doing the sums : the figures on the 
board danced before her eyes, and she could not 
follow the working out of the problems, and some- 
times the teacher punished her by making her 
stand until the lesson was finished. 

But she was clever with her fingers, and soon 
knew all about weaving. How proud she was when 
she ran home with her first week's earnings! She 
laid them in the lap of her mother, who cried over 
them and wrapped them up and put them away: 
she could not, just then, find it in her heart to 
spend such precious money. 

By the time she was fourteen Mary was working 
a large machine and being paid a good wage. But 
she had to toil very hard for it. She rose at five 
o'clock in the morning, when the factory whistle 
blew, and was in the works by six, and, except for 
two hours off for meals, she was busy at her task 
until six in the evening. In the warm summer days 
she did not go home, but carried her dinner with 
her and ate it sitting beside the loom; and some- 
times she went away by herself and walked in the 
park. Saturday afternoons and Sundays were her 



8 THE WHITE QUEEN OF OKOYONG 

own, but they were usually spent in helping her 
mother. Her dress was coarse and plain, and she 
wore no pretty ornaments, though she liked them 
as much as her companions did, for she was learning 
to put aside all the things she did not really need, 
and by and by she came not to miss them, and 
found pleasure instead in making others happy. 
She would have been quite content if only her father 
had been different. 

But there was no hope now of a better time. 
The shadow became so black that it was like night 
when there are no stars in the sky. Mrs. Slessor 
and Mary had a big burden to bear and a grim battle 
to fight. In their distress they clung to one another, 
and prayed to Jesus for help and strength, for they, 
of themselves, could do little. On Saturday nights 
Mr. Slessor came home late, and treated them 
unkindly, so that Mary was often forced to go out 
into the cold streets and wait until he had gone to 
sleep. As she wandered about she felt very lonely 
and very miserable, and sometimes sobbed as if her 
heart would break. When she passed the bright 
windows of the places where drink was sold, she 
wondered why people were allowed to ruin men 
and women in such a way, and she clenched her 
hands and resolved that when she grew up she 
would war against this terrible thing which de- 
stroyed the peace and happiness of homes. 

But at last the trouble came to an end. One 



THE WHITE QUEEN OF OKOYONG 9 

tragic day Mary stood and looked down with a 
great awe upon the face of her father lying white 
and still in death. 

What she went through in these days made her 
often sad and downcast, for she had a loving heart, 
and suffered sorely when any one was rough to her 
or ill-treated her. But good came out of it too. 
She was like a white starry flower which grows on 
the walls and verandahs of houses in the tropics. 
The hot sunshine is not able to draw perfume from 
it, but as soon as darkness falls its fragrance scents 
the air and comes stealing through the open windows 
and doors. So it was with Mary. She grew sweeter 
in the darkness of trouble; it was in the shadows 
of life that she learned to be patient and brave and 
unselfish. 

We must not think less, but more, of her for 
coming out of such a home. It is not always the 
girls and boys who are highly favoured that grow 
up to do the best and biggest things in life. Some 
of the men and women to whom the world owes 
most had a hard time when they were young. The 
home life of President Lincoln, who freed millions 
of slaves in America, was like Mary's, yet his name 
has become one of the most famous in history. No 
girl or boy should despair because they are poor or 
lonely or crushed down in any way; let them fight 
on, quietly and patiently, and in the end better 
things and- happier times will come. 



10 THE WHITE QUEEN OF OKOYONG 

Mrs. Slessor now left the factory, and for a time 
kept a little shop, in which Mary used to help, 
especially on Saturday afternoons and nights, when 
trade was busiest. The girl was still dreaming 
dreams about the wonderful days that lay before 
her, but, unlike many others who do the same, 
she did her best to make hers come true. She 
wanted to learn things, and she found that books 
would tell her, and so she was led into the great 
world of knowledge. The more she read the more 
she wanted to know. So eager was she that when 
she left home for her work, she slipped a book into 
her pocket and glanced at it in the streets. She did 
not know then about Dr. Livingstone, the African 
missionary and traveller, but she did exactly what 
he had done when he was a boy : she propped a 
book on a corner of the loom in the factory, and 
read whenever she had a moment to spare. Her 
companions tell how they used to see her take out 
a little note-book, put it on the weaver's beam, and 
jot down her thoughts — she was always writing, 
they say; sometimes it was poetry, sometimes an 
essay, sometimes a letter to a friend. But she never 
neglected her work. 

How different her lot was from that of most 
girls of to-day! They have leisure for their lessons, 
and they learn music and do fancy work and keep 
house and bake — and how many hate it all ! Mary 
had only a few precious minutes, but she made the 



THE WHITE QUEEN OF OKOYONG 11 

most of them. The books she read were not stories, 
but ones like Milton's Paradise Lost and Carlyle's 
Sartor Resartus, and so deep did she become in 
them at night that sometimes she forgot everything, 
and read on and on through the quiet hours, and 
only came to herself with a start when she heard the 
warning whistle of the factory in the early morning. 

She was fond of all good books, but the one she 
liked most and knew better than any was the Bible. 
She pored over it so often that she remembered 
much of it by heart. In the Bible Class she was so 
quick and so ready to answer questions that Mr. 
Baxter, her minister, used to say, "Now, Mary 
Slessor, don't answer any more questions till I bid 
you." When every one else failed he would turn 
to her with "Now, Mary," and she always had her 
reply ready. She was never tired of the story of 
Jesus, especially as it is told in the Gospel of St. 
John, for there He appeared to her so kind and 
winsome and lovable. When she thought of all He 
did, how He came from His own beautiful heaven 
to save the world from what is sinful and sad, and 
how He was made to suffer and at last was put to 
death, and how His teaching has brought peace and 
safety and sunshine into the lives of millions of 
women and girls, she felt she must do something 
for Him to show her love and thankfulness and 
devotion. 

"He says we must do as He did and try to make 



12 THE WHITE QUEEN OF OKOYONG 

people better and happier, and so I, too, must do 
my best and join in the war against all that is evil 
and unlovely and unrestful in the world." So she 
thought to herself. 

She did not say, "I am only a girl, what can I 
do?" She knew that when a General wanted an 
army to fight a strong enemy he did not call for 
officers only, but for soldiers — hosts of them, and 
especially for those who were young. "I can be a 
soldier," Mary said humbly. "Dear Lord, I will do 
what I can — here are my heart and head and hands 
and feet — use me for anything that I can do." 

The first thing that she did was to take a class 
of little girls in the Sunday School, and thus she 
began to teach others before she was educated her- 
self, but it is not always those who are best trained 
who can teach best. The heart of Mary was so 
full of deep true love for Jesus that it caused her 
face to shine and her eyes to smile and her lips to 
speak kind words, and that is the sort of learning 
that wins others to Him. 

Wishart Church, to which she went, was built 
over shops, and looked down upon the old Port 
Gate and upon streets and lanes which were filled 
at night with big boys and girls who seemed to 
have no other place to go to, and nothing to do but 
lounge and swear and fight. Mary felt she would 
like to do something for them. By and by when a 
Mission was begun in a little house in Queen Street 



THE WHITE QUEEN OF OKOYONG 13 

— there is a brass inscription upon the wall, now, 
telling about Mary — she went to the superintendent 
and said, "Will you take me as a teacher?" 
"Gladly," he said, but she looked so small and frail 
that he was afraid the work would be too rough 
for her. 

What a time she had at first! The boys and 
girls did not want anybody to bother about them : 
those who came to the meeting were wild and noisy ; 
those who remained outside threw stones and mud 
and tried to stop the work. Mary faced them, 
smiling and unafraid, and dared them to touch 
her. Some grew ashamed of worrying the brave 
little teacher, and these she won over to her side. 
But there were others with sullen eyes and clenched 
fists who would not give in, and they did their 
best to make her life a misery. 

One night a band of the most violent lay in wait 
for her, and she found herself suddenly in their 
midst. They hustled and threatened her. 

"We'll do for you if you don't leave us alone," 
they cried. 

She was quaking with fear, but she did not show 
it. She just breathed a prayer for help, and looked 
at them with her quiet eyes. 

"I will not give up," she replied. "You can do 
what you like." 

"All right," shouted the leader, a big hulking lad. 
"Here goes." 



14 THE WHITE QUEEN OF OKOYONG 

Out of his pocket he took a lump of lead to 
which was tied a bit of cord, and began to swing it 
round her head. The rest of the gang looked on 
breathless, wondering at the courage of the girl. 
The lead came nearer and swished past her brow. 
Pale, calm, unflinching, she stood waiting for the 
blow that would fell her to the ground. Suddenly the 
lad jerked away the weapon and let it fall with a 
crash. 

"We can't force her, boys," he cried, "she's game." 

And, like beaten foes, they followed her, and 
went to the meeting and into her class, and after 
that there was no more trouble. The boys fell 
under her spell, grew fond of her, and in their shy 
way did all they could to help her. On Saturday 
afternoons she would take them into the country 
away from the temptations of the streets, and 
sought to make them gentle and kind and generous. 
Some of the most wayward amongst them gave 
their hearts to Jesus, and afterwards grew to be 
good and useful men. 

What was it that gave her such an influence over 
these rude and unruly boys? They did not know. 
She was not what is called a pretty girl. She was 
plain and quiet and simple, and she was poorly 
clad. But she was somehow different from most 
teachers. Perhaps it was because she loved them 
so much, for the love that is real and pure and 
unselfish is the greatest power in the world. 



THE WHITE QUEEN OF OKOYONG 15 



Through the hearts of the boys Mary found her 
way to their homes in the slums, and paid visits to 
their mothers and sisters, and saw that life to them 
was often very hard and wretched. The other 
Mission workers used to go two and two, but she 
often went alone. _ 

Once she was a 
long time away, 
and when she came 
back she said 
laughingly : 

"I've been din- 
ing with the Mac- 
donalds in Quarry 
Pend." 

"Indeed," said 
some one, "and 
did you get a clean 
plate and spoon?" 

"Oh, never mind 
that," replied Mary. 
"I've got into their house and been asked to come 
back, and that's all I care about." 

She always went in the same spirit in which 
Jesus would have gone. Sometimes she would sit 
by the fire with the baby on her knees; sometimes 
she would take tea with the family, drinking out of 
a broken cup ; sometimes she would help the mother 
to finish a bit of work. And always she cheered 




One of the "Pends" or "Closes" 
where Mary visited the Boys in 
her Class. 



16 THE WHITE QUEEN OF OKOYONG 

up tired and anxious hearts, and left sunshine and 
peace where there had been only the blackness of 
despair. 

No one could be long in her company without 
feeling better, and not a few of her friends came, 
through her, to know and love and work for Jesus. 
"Three weeks after I knew her," says one of her 
old factory mates, "I became a different girl." 
How eager and earnest she was ! "Oh !" she said 
to a companion, "I wonder what we would do or 
dare for Jesus ? Would we be burned at the stake ? 
Would we give our lives for His sake?" "She did 
work hard," says another, "and whatever she did, 
she did with heart and soul." 

When the Mission was removed to the rooms 
under the church, the superintendent said: "We 
shall need a charwoman to give the place a thor- 
ough cleaning." 

"Nonsense," said Mary; "we will clean it our- 
selves." 

"You ladies clean such a dirty hall!" 

"Ladies !" cried Mary ; "we are no ladies, we are 
just ordinary working folk." 

Next night Mary and another teacher were found, 
with sleeves turned up and aprons on, busy with 
pails of water and brushes scrubbing out the rooms. 
Like other young people, she had her troubles, big 
and little, and these she met bravely. Evil- 
minded persons, jealous of her goodness, sometimes 



THE WHITE QUEEN OF OKOYONG 17 

said unkind things about her, but she never paid 
any heed to them. She always did what she thought 
was right, and went her own way. On Saturdays 
she used to put her hair in curlpapers, and her com- 
panions teased her a lot about it, and tried to 
laugh her out of the habit, but she just laughed 
back. When she and two or three friends met dur- 
ing the meal hour and held a little prayer meet- 
ing opposite the factory, the other girls would 
come and peep in, and one of her companions would 
be vexed and scold them. "Dinna bother, Janet," 
she would say quietly, "we needna mind what 
they do." 

She was not always serious, but could enjoy fun 
and frolic with the wildest. Once while walking in 
the country with a girl she knocked playfully at 
some cottage doors and ran away. "Oh, Mary," 
said her friend, "I'm shocked at you!" 

Mary only laughed, and said, "A little nonsense 
now and then is relished by the wisest men." 

From one old friend we get a picture of her at 
this time. "Her face was always shining and happy. 
With her fresh skin, her short ringlets, and her 
firm mouth she somehow always made me think of 
a farmer's daughter coming to market with butter 
and eggs!" 

Her life during these years was a training for 
what she had to do in the future. She must have 
had an inkling of it, for her dreams now were all of 



18 THE WHITE QUEEN OF OKOYONG 

service in the far lands beyond the seas. Through 
the gloom of the smoky streets she was always 
seeing visions of tropical rivers and tangled jungle 
and heathen huts amongst palm trees, and above 
the noise of the factory she was hearing the cries of 
the little bush-children ; and she longed to leave 
busy Dundee with its churches and Sunday Schools 
and go out and help where help was most needed. 
She did not say anything, for she knew it was her 
brother John that her mother was anxious to make 
a missionary. He was a big lad, but very delicate, 
and there came a time when the doctor said he must 
leave the cold climate of Scotland or die. He sailed 
to New Zealand, but it was too late, and he passed 
away there. His mother grieved again over her 
lost hopes, and Mary, who was very fond of him, 
wept bitterly. As she went about her work she 
repeated the hymn, "Lead, kindly Light," to herself, 
finding comfort in the last two lines: 

And with the morn those angel faces smile 
Which I have loved long since, and lost awhile. 

And then she came back to her dazzling day- 
dream. Could she not, after all, be the missionary? 
But she was not educated, and she was the chief 
breadwinner of the family, and her mother leant 
upon her so much. How could she manage it? 
She thought it all out, and at last said, "I can do 
it. I will do it." She was one of the cleverest 



THE WHITE QUEEN OF OKOYONG 19 

weavers in the factory, and she began to do extra 
work, thus earning a bigger wage and saving more 
money. She studied very hard. She practised 
speaking at meetings until she learned how to put 
her thoughts into clear and simple words. 

But it was a weary, weary time, for she spent 
fourteen years within the walls of the factory. 
Thousands of other girls, of course, were doing the 
same, and sometimes they got very tired, but had 
just to go bravely on. In one of her poems Mrs. 
Browning tells us what it was like : how the re- 
volving wheels seemed to make everything turn too 
— the heads and hearts of the girls, the walls, the 
sky seen out of the high windows, even the black 
flies on the ceiling — 

All day, the iron wheels are droning, 

And sometimes we could pray, 
"O ye wheels," (breaking out in a mad moaning) 

"Stop ! be silent for to-day !" 

But they never did stop, and the girls had only 
their hopes and dreams to make them patient and 
brave. 

One day there flashed through the land a tele- 
gram which caused much excitement and sorrow. 
Africa was then an unknown country, vast and 
mysterious, and haunted by all the horrors of slav- 
ery and heathenism. For a long time there had 
been tramping through it a white man, a Scotsman, 
David Livingstone, hero of heroes, who had been 



20 THE WHITE QUEEN OF OKOYONG 

gradually finding out the secrets of its lakes and 
rivers and peoples. Sometimes he was lost for 
years. The telegram which came told of his lonely 
death in a hut in the heart of the continent. Every 
one asked, What is to be done now? who is to 
take up the work of the great pioneer and help to 
save the natives from misery and death? Amongst 
those whose hearts leapt at the call was Mary Sles- 
sor. She went to her mother. 

"Mother," she said, "I am going to offer myself 
as a missionary. But do not fret. I will be able 
to give you part of my salary, and that, with the 
earnings of Susan and Janie, will keep the home 
in comfort." 

"My lassie," was the reply, "I'll willingly let you 
go. You'll make a fine missionary, and I'm sure 
God will be with you." 

Some of her friends wondered at her. They 
knew she was not specially brave; indeed, was not 
her timidity a joke amongst them? "Why," they 
said, "she is even afraid of dogs. When she sees 
one coming down the street she goes into a passage 
until it is past!" This was true, but they forgot 
that love can cast out all fear. 

Tremblingly she waited for the answer to her 
letter to the Mission Board of the United Presby- 
terian Church in Edinburgh. When it arrived she 
rushed to her mother. 

"I'm accepted! I'm going to Calabar as a 



THE WHITE QUEEN OF OKOYONG 21 

teacher." And then, strange to say, she burst into 
tears. 

So she who had waited so long and so patiently, 
working within the walls of a factory, weaving the 
warp and woof in the loom, was now going to one 
of the wildest parts of Africa to weave there the 
lives of the people into new and beautiful patterns. 







The House in Queen Street, Dundee, where Marv 
Slessor first taught as a Mission Teacher. 







Duke Town, West Africa. 



CHAPTER II 



How our heroine sailed away to a golden land of sunshine 
across the sea; how she found that under all the beauty 
there were terrible things which made life a misery to the 
dark-skinned natives; how she began to fight their evil ideas 
and ways and to rescue little children from death; how, 
after losing all her loved ones, she took a little twin-girl to 
her heart, and how she grew strong and calm and brave. 

On an autumn morning in 1876 Miss Slessor stood 
on the deck of the steamer Ethiopia in Liverpool 
docks and waved good-bye to two companions from 
Dundee who had gone to see her off. As the vessel 
cleared the land and moved out into the wide spaces 
of the waters she, who had always lived in narrow 
streets, felt as if she were on holiday, and was in as 
high spirits as any schoolgirl. She could not help 
being kind and helpful to others, and soon made 
friends with many of the passengers and crew. 
One man drew her like a magnet, for he also was 
22 



THE WHITE QUEEN OF OKOYONG 23 

a dreamer of dreams. This was Mr. Thomson, an 
architect from Glasgow, who was filled with the 
idea that the missionaries in West Africa would do 
better work and remain out longer if there were 
some cool place near at hand to which they could 
go for a rest and change. He had been all over the 
Coast, and explored the rivers and hills, and had 
at last found a healthy spot five thousand feet up 
on the Cameroon Mountains, where he decided to 
build a home. He had given up his business, and 
was now on his way out, with his wife and two 
workmen, to put his dream into shape. Mary's 
eyes shone as she listened to his tale of love and 
sacrifice; but, alas! the plan, so beautiful, so full 
of hope for the missionaries, came to nothing, for 
he died not long after landing. 

It was from Mr. Thomson that she learned most 
about the strange country to which she was going. 
He told her how it was covered with thick bush 
and forest; how swift, mud-coloured rivers came out 
of mysterious lands which had never been seen by 
white men; how the sun shone like a furnace-fire, 
and how sudden hurricanes of rain and wind came 
and swept away huts and uprooted trees. He de- 
scribed the wild animals he had seen — huge hippo- 
potami and crocodiles in the creeks; elephants, 
leopards, and snakes in the forests ; and lovely hued 
birds that flashed in the sunlight — until her eyes 
sparkled and her cheeks flushed as they had done 



bveffpoo 



24, THE WHITE QUEEN OF OKOYONG 

in the old days when she listened to the stories told 
by her mother. 

Within a week the steamer had passed out of 
the grey north, and was gliding through a calm 
sea beneath a blue and sunny sky. By and by 

Mary was seeking 
cool corners under 
the awning, and 
listening lazily to 
the swish of the 
waves from the 
bows and watching 
golden sunsets and 
big bright stars. 
Sometimes she saw 
scores of flying-fish 
hurry- scurrying 
over the shining 
surface, and at 
night the prow of 
the vessel went 
flashing through 
water that sparkled like diamonds. 

By and by came the hot smell of Africa, long 
lines of surf rolling on lonely shores, white fort- 
resses that spoke of the old slave days, and little 
port towns, half -hidden amongst trees, where she 
got her first glimpses of the natives, and was amused 
at the din they made as they came off to the steamer, 




From Dundee to Calabar. 



THE WHITE QUEEN OF OKOYONG 25 



<9L 

NoRrtf ^ 

NEW YORK 



fearless of the sharks that swarmed in the water. 
It was all strange and unreal to the Scottish weaver- 
girl. 

And when, after a month, the vessel came to 
the Calabar River and steamed through waters 
crowded with 
white cranes and 
pelicans, and past 
dark mangrove 
swamps and sand- 
banks where the 
crocodiles lay sun- 
ning themselves, 
and islands gay 
with parrots and 
monkeys, up to 
Duke Town, the 
queer huddle of 
mud huts amongst 
the palm trees that 
was to be her home, she was excited beyond telling. 
For at last that wonderful dream of hers, which 
she had cherished through so many long years, had 
come true, and so wonderful was it that it seemed 
to be still only a dream and nothing more. 

Clear above the river and the town, like a light- 
house on a cliff, stood the Mission where "Daddy" 
and "Mammy" Anderson, two of its famous 
pioneers, lived, and with them Mary stayed until she 




26 THE WHITE QUEEN OF OKOYONG 

knew something about the natives and her work. 
She felt very happy; she loved the glowing sun- 
shine, the gorgeous sunsets, the white moonlight, 
the shining river, the flaming blossoms amongst 
which the humming-birds and butterflies flitted, and 
all the sights and sounds that were so different from 
those in Scotland. She was so glad that she used 
to write poems, and in one of these she sings of the 
beauty of the land: 

. . . the shimmering, dancing wavelets 

And the stately, solemn palms, 

The wild, weird chant of the boatmen 

And the natives' evening psalms, 

The noise of myriad insects 

And the firefly's soft bright sheen, 

The bush with its thousand terrors 

And its never-fading green. 

Her spirits, so long bottled up in Dundee, over- 
flowed, and she did things which amused and some- 
times vexed the older and more serious missionaries. 
She climbed trees and ran races with the black 
girls and boys, and was so often late at meals that 
Mrs. Anderson, by way of punishment, left her out 
nothing to eat. But "Daddy" was fond of the 
bright-eyed, warm-hearted lassie, and he always 
hid some bananas and other fruit and passed them 
to her in secret. There was no factory whistle to 
warn her in the morning, and sometimes she would 
start up in the middle of the night and, seeing her 
room almost as light as midday, would hastily put 



THE WHITE QUEEN OF OKOYONG 27 

on her clothes, thinking she had slept in, and run 
out to ring the first bell, only to find a very quiet 
world and the great round moon shining in the 
sky. 

It was not long before all the light and colour 
and beauty of the land seemed to fade away, and 
only the horror of a great darkness remain. She 
was taken to the homes and yards of the natives 
in the town and out into the bush, and saw a savage 
heathenism that astonished and shocked her. She 
did not think that people could be so wretched and 
degraded and ignorant. At some of the places the 
naked children were so afraid of her that they ran 
away screaming. She herself shrank from the fierce 
men who thronged round her, but her winning way 
captured their hearts, and she was soon quite at 
home with them. 

When she came back she was very thoughtful, and 
talked to Mrs. Anderson of the things she had seen. 

"My lassie," said "Mammy," "you've seen noth- 
ing." And she began to tell her of the terrible evils 
that filled the land with misery and sorrow. 

"All around us, in the bush and far away into 
the interior, there are millions of these black people. 
In every little village there is a Chief or Master, and 
a few free men and women, but the rest are slaves, 
and can be sold or flogged or killed at their owner's 
pleasure. It is all right when they are treated 
kindly, but think of the kind of men the masters 



28 THE WHITE QUEEN OF OKOYONG 



are. All the tribes are wild and cruel and cun- 
ning, and pass their days and nights in righting each 
other and in dancing and drinking, and there are 
some that are cannibals and feast on the bodies of 
those they have slain. Their religion is the fear of 
spirits, one of blood and sacrifice, in which there is 
no love. When a chief dies, do you know what hap- 
pens to his wives and slaves? Their heads are cut 
off and they are buried with him to be his com- 
panions in the spirit-land." 

? Mary shivered. "It 

must be awful for the 
children," she said. 

"Ah, yes, nearly all 
are slaves, and their 
masters look upon them 
as if they were sheep 
or pigs. They are his 
wealth. As soon as they 
are able to walk they 
begin to carry loads on their heads, and paddle 
canoes and sweep and clean out the yards. Often 
they are beaten or branded with a hot iron, or get 
their ears cut off. They sleep on the ground with- 
out any covering. When the girls grow up they 
are hidden away in the ufok nkiikho, or 'house of 
seclusion,' and made very fat, and then become the 
slave-wives of the masters or freemen. And the 
twins! Poor mites. For some reason the people 




A Pot into which Twins 
were PUT. 



THE WHITE QUEEN OF OKOYONG 29 

fear them worse than death, and they are not al- 
lowed to live; they are killed and crushed into pots 
and thrown away for leopards to eat. The mother 
is hounded into the bush, where she must live alone. 
She, too, is afraid of the twin-babies, and she 
would murder them if others did not." 

Mary cried out in hot rage against so cruel a 
system. 

"Oh," she said, "I want to fight it; I want to 
save those innocent babes." 

"Right, lassie," replied "Mammy," "and we need 
a hundred more like you to help." 

Mary jumped to her feet. "The first thing I have 
to do," she said, "is to learn the language. I can 
do nothing until I know it well." 

Efik is the chief tongue spoken in this part of 
Africa, and so quickly did she pick it up and master 
it that the people said she was "blessed with an 
Efik mouth"; and then her old dream came true, 
and she began to teach the black boys and girls in 
the day school. There were not many, for the 
chiefs did not believe in educating them. The big- 
ger ones wore only a red or white shirt, while the 
wee ones had nothing on at all, and they carried 
their slates on their heads and their pencils in their 
woolly hair. In spite of everything they were a 
happy lot, with bright eyes and nimble feet, and 
Mary loved them, and those that were mischievous 



30 THE WHITE QUEEN OF OKOYONG 

most of all. She also went down to the yards out 
of which they came, and spoke to their fathers and 
mothers about Jesus, and begged them to come to 
the Mission church. 

When she had been out three years she fell ill, 
and was home-sick for her mother and friends. 
Calabar then was like some of the flowers growing 
in the bush, very pretty but very poisonous. Mary 
had fever so badly and was so weak that she was 
glad to be put on board the steamer and taken 
away. 

In Scotland the cool winds and the loving care 
of her mother soon made her strong again. 

Sometimes she was asked to speak at meetings, 
but was very shy to face people. One Sunday 
morning in Edinburgh she went to a children's 
church. The superintendent asked her to come to 
the platform, but she would not go. Then he ex- 
plained to the children who she was, and begged 
her to tell them something about Calabar. She 
blushed and refused. A hymn was given out, dur- 
ing which the superintendent pled with her to 
say a few words. "No, no, I cannot," she replied 
timidly. He was not to be beaten. "Let us pray," 
he said. He prayed that Miss Slessor might be 
able to give them a message. When he finished he 
appealed to her again. After a pause she rose, 
and, turning her head half -away, spoke, not about 



THE WHITE QUEEN OF OKOYONG 31 



Calabar, but about the free and glad life which 
children in a Christian land enjoyed, and how grate- 
ful they ought to be to Jesus, to whom they owed 
it all. 

When she reached Calabar again she was made 
very happy, for her dream was to be a real mission- 
ary, and she found that she was to be in charge of 
the women's work at Old Town, a place two miles 
higher up the river, noted for its wickedness. She 
could now do as she liked, and save more money to 
send home to her mother and sisters, for they were 
always first in her thoughts. She lived in a hut 
built of mud and 
slips of bamboo, 
with a roof of 
palm leaves, wore 
old clothes, and 
ate the cheap food 
of the natives, 
yam and plantain 
and fish. Many 
white persons 
wondered why she 
did this, and made 

remarks, but she did not tell them the reason : she 
cared less than ever for the laughter and scorn of 
others. 

She soon became a power in the district. The 
men in the town were selfish and greedy, and would 




Towns in Calabar. 

There are so many winding creeks that the 

district looks like a jigsaw puzzle. 



32 THE WHITE QUEEN OF OKOYONG 

not let the inland natives come with their palm oil 
and trade with the factories, and fights often took 
place, and blood was shed. "This will never do," 
Mary said, and she began to help the country peo- 
ple, allowing them to steal down at night through the 
Mission ground, and guiding them past the sentries 
to the beach. The townsmen were angry, but they 
could not browbeat the brave white woman, and at 
last they gave in, and so the trading became free. 

Then she began to oppose the custom of killing 
twins, and by and by she came to be known as 
"the Ma who loves babies." "Ma" in the Efik 
tongue is a title of respect given to women, and 
ever after she was known to all, white and black, 
as "Ma Slessor," or "Ala Akamba," the great Ma, 
or just simply "Ma," and we, too, may use the same 
name for her. 

One day a young Scottish trader named Owen 
came to her with a black baby in his arms. 

"Ma," he said, "I have found this baby thing 
lying away in the bush. It's a twin. The other 
has been killed. It would soon have died if I hadn't 
picked it up. I knew you'd like it, and so here 
it is." 

Ma thanked the young man for his kindly act, 
and took the child, a bright and attractive girl, to 
her heart of hearts. "I'll call it Janie," she said, 
"after my sister." 

She was delighted one day to hear that the 



THE WHITE QUEEN OF OKOYONG 33 

British Consul and the missionaries had at last 
coaxed the chiefs in the river towns to make a law- 
after their own fashion against twin-murder. This 
was done through a secret society called Egbo, 
which was very powerful and ruled the land. Those 
who belonged to it sent out men with whips and 
drums, called runners, who were disguised in masks 
and strange dresses. When they appeared all 
women and children had to fly indoors. If caught 
they were flogged. It was these men who came to 
proclaim the new rules. Ma thus tells about the scene 
in a letter to Sunday School children in Dundee : 

Just as it became dark one evening I was sitting in 
my verandah talking to the children, when we heard the 
beating of drums and the singing of men coming near. 
This was strange, because we are on a piece of ground 
which no one in the town has a right to enter. Taking 
the wee twin boys in my hands I rushed out, and what 
do you think I saw? A crowd of men standing outside 
the fence chanting and swaying their bodies. They 
were proclaiming that all twins and twin-mothers could 
now live in the town, and that if any one murdered the 
twins or harmed the mothers he would be hanged by the 
neck. If you could have heard the twin-mothers who 
were there, how they laughed and clapped their hands 
and shouted, "Sosoho! Sosono!" ("Thank you! 
Thank you!"). You will not wonder that amidst all 
the noise I turned aside and wept tears of joy and 
thankfulness, for it was a glorious day for Calabar. 

A few days later the treaties were signed, and at the 
same time a new King was crowned. Twin-mothers 



34 THE WHITE QUEEN OF OKOYONG 

were actually sitting with us on a platform in front of 
all the people. Such a thing had never been known 
before. What a scene it was ! How can I describe it ? 
There were thousands of Africans, each with a voice 
equal to ten men at home, and all speaking as loudly 
as they could. The women were the worst. I asked 
a chief to stop the noise. "Ma," he said, "how I fit 
stop them woman mouth?" The Consul told the 
King that he must have quiet during the reading of the 
treaties, but the King said helplessly, "How can I do? 
They be women — best put them away," and many 
were put away. 

And the dresses ! As some one said of a hat I trimmed, 
they were "overpowering." The women had crimson 
silks and satins covered with earrings and brooches 
and all kinds of finery. The men were in all sorts of 
uniform with gold and silver lace and jewelled hats and 
caps. Many naked bodies were covered with beadwork, 
silks, damask, and even red and green table-cloths 
trimmed with gold and silver. Their legs were circled 
with brass and beadwork, and unseen bells that tinkled 
all the time. The hats were immense affairs with huge 
feathers of all colours and brooches. 

The Egbo men were the most gorgeous. Some had 
large three-cornered hats with long plumes hanging 
down. Some had crowns, others wore masks of animals 
with horns, and all were looped round with ever so 
many skirts and trailed tails a yard or two long with a 
tuft of feathers at the end. Such splendour is barbaric, 
but it is imposing in its own place. 

Well, the people have agreed to do away with many 
of the bad customs they have that hinder the spread of 
the Gospel. You must remember that it is the long 



THE WHITE QUEEN OF OKOYONG 35 

and faithful teaching of God's word that is bringing the 
people to a state of mind fit for better things. 

Now I am sleepy. Good-bye. May God make us 
all worthy of what He has done for us. 

The people were good for a time, but soon fell 
back into the habit of centuries, and did in secret 
what they used to do openly. Ma saw that the 
struggle was only just beginning, and she threw 
herself into it with all her courage and strength. 

She was always studying her Bible, and learning 
more of the love and power of Jesus, and so much 
did she lean on Him that she was growing quite 
fearless, and would go by herself into the vilest 
haunts in the town or far out into lonesome villages. 
Often she took a canoe and went up the river and 
into the creeks and visited places where no white 
woman had been before, healing the sick, sitting 
by the wayside listening to the tales of the people, 
and talking to them about the Saviour of the world. 
Sometimes there was so much to say and do that 
she could not get back the same day, and she slept 
on straw or leaves in the open air, or on a bundle of 
rags in an evil-smelling hut. 

Once she took the house-children and went a 
long river journey to visit an exiled chief who lived 
in a district haunted by elephants. They were to 
start in the morning, but things are done very lei- 
surely in Africa, and it was night before they set off 
by torchlight. Eyo Honesty VII., the negro king 



36 THE WHITE QUEEN OF OKOYONG 

of Creek Town, who was a Christian and always 
very kind to Ma, had sent a State canoe, brightly 
painted, with the message: 

"Ma must not go as a nameless stranger to a 
strange people, but as a lady and our Mother, and 
she can use the canoe as long as she pleases." 

There was a crew of thirty-three men dressed 
only in loin-cloths. 

As they dipped the paddles and sped onwards 

over the quiet water, a drummer drummed his 

drum, and the crew chanted a song in her praise: 

Ma, our beautiful beloved mother is on board, 

Ho, ho, ho! 

The motion of the canoe was like a cradle, and 
the song like a mother's crooning, and she fell asleep ; 
and all through the night, amongst these wild black 
men, she lay in God's keeping like a little child. 

At dawn they came to a beach and a village, 
where she was given a mud room in the chief's 
yard, and here for a whole fortnight she lived in 
the company of dogs, fowls, rats, lizards, and mos- 
quitoes. Many of the people had never seen a white 
person, and were afraid to touch her. She was very 
sorry for them, they were so poor and naked and 
dirty, and she busied herself making clothes and 
healing the sick. So many were ill that a canoe had 
to be sent to the nearest Mission House for another 
supply of medicines. 

One day the chief said to her, "Ma, two of my 



THE WHITE QUEEN OF OKOYONG 37 

wives have been doing wrong, and they are to get 
one hundred stripes each on their bare backs. It 
is the custom." 

She was horrified. "Why, what have they 
done ?" 

"They went into a yard that is not their own. 
Of course," he added, "they are young and thought- 
less, they are only sixteen years old, but they must 
learn." 

"Oh, but that is a very cruel punishment for 
young girls." 

"Ma, it is nothing ; we shall also rub salt into the 
wounds and perhaps cut off their ears. That is the 
only way to make the women obey us." 

"No, no, you must not do that," cried Ma. "Bring 
all the people together for a palaver." 

The crowd gathered, and the two girls stood in 
front with sullen faces. Ma spoke to them. 

"You have done wrong according to your law, 
and you will have to be punished." 

At this, smiles broke over the faces of the men; 
but Ma turned to them swiftly and cried, "You are 
in the wrong too. Shame on you for making a law 
that marries girls so early! Why, these are still 
children who love fun and mischief. Their fault 
is a small one, and you must not punish them so 
cruelly." 

The smiles fled, and the faces grew angry and 
defiant, and there were mutterings and threats. 



38 THE WHITE QUEEN OF OKOYONG 

"Who are you to come and spoil our laws," said 
some of the big men; "the girls are ours, let us have 
them." 

But Ma was firm, and as she was the guest of 
the village, and worthy of honour, they at length 
agreed to give a lighter punishment. The girls were 
handed over to two strong fellows, who flogged 
them with a whip. Ma heard their screams amidst 
the shouts and laughter of those who looked on, 
and was ready to attend to their bleeding bodies 
when they ran into her room. Then she gave them 
something which made them sleep and forget their 
pain and misery. 

"What can you expect?" said she to herself; 
"they have never heard of God, they worship hu- 
man skulls, and they don't know about love and 
compassion and mercy" — and she did her best to 
teach them. 

In the quiet nights, when their work in the fields 
was over, they came and squatted on the ground, 
the big men in front, the slaves outside, and she 
stood beside a little table on which were a Bible 
and hymn-book and a lamp, and in her sweet and 
earnest voice told them the story of the gentle 
Jesus. She could not see anything but the dark 
mass of their bodies and the gleaming of their eyes, 
and they sat so still that when she stopped she 
could only hear the sighing of the wind among the 
palm tops. It was all very wonderful to them. 



THE WHITE QUEEN OF OKOYONG 89 

Sometimes they would ask questions, chiefly about 
the life after death, which was such a mystery to 
them, and, when they rose, they slipped away softly 
to their homes to talk about this strange new re- 
ligion that was so different from their own. 

It was the time of storms, and one day when Ma 
was sitting sewing the sky grew dark, lightning 
flashed, thunder crashed, and floods fell. The roof 
of the hut was blown away, and she was drenched 
to the skin, and for a time was ill with fever and 
nigh to death. 

On the way back at night to Old Town another 
tornado burst, flooding the 
canoe, and tossing it about like 
a match-box on the raging 
waves. The crew lost their 
wits, and Ma thought they 
would be upset. But putting 
aside her own fear for the sake 
of others, she made the men 
paddle into the mangrove, 
where they jumped into the 
branches like monkeys and 
held on to the canoe until the 
danger was passed. All 
sitting in water, and Ma was wet through and 
shaking with ague. She became so ill that when 
Old Town was reached she had to be carried up to 
the Mission House. Yet she did not go to bed until 




40 THE WHITE QUEEN OF OKOYONG 

she had made hot tea for the children, and tucked 
them snugly away for the night. 

Soon afterwards another tornado destroyed her 
house, and she and the children escaped through the 
wind and rain to the home of some white traders 
who were very kind to her. But she was so ill 
after all she had gone through that she was ordered 
to Scotland, and had again to be carried on board 
the steamer. She would not leave Janie behind her, 
as she was afraid the people would murder her, 
and so the girl-twin also sailed with her across the 
sea. 

Ma soon grew strong in her native air, and one 
Sunday she went to her old church in £)undee with 
Janie, and there, in the Sunday School, the black 
child was baptized and given the name that had 
been chosen for her. With her black skin and her 
solemn eyes she was a curious sight to the boys 
and girls, and they came crowding round and begged 
to be allowed to hold her for a little. She appeared 
at many of the meetings to which Ma went, and 
during the address would sit on the platform munch- 
ing biscuits, which she was always ready to share 
with every one near her. 

One night Ma travelled to Falkirk to speak to a 
large class of girls taught by Miss Bessie Wilson, a 
well-known lady in the Church. She had a message 
that night, and her face shone and her words fell 
like stirring music on the young hearts before her. 



THE WHITE QUEEN OF OKOYONG 41 

Janie was passed round from one to another, and 
helped to make her story more real. So delighted 
were the girls with the black baby that they begged 
to be allowed to give something every month for 
her support. 

Perhaps all this had nothing to do with what 
happened afterwards, but was it not strange that 
out of that class by and by no fewer than six mem- 
bers gave themselves to the work in Calabar, includ- 
ing Miss Wright and Miss Peacock, two of Ma's 
dearest friends and best helpers? 

Ma had a wonderful power of drawing other 
people to her and of influencing them for good. 
On this visit one girl, Miss Hogg, was no sooner in 
her company than she decided to go to Calabar, 
and she went, and was for many years a much-loved 
missionary, whose name was familiar to the children 
of the Church at home. 

Ma was anxious to be back at her work, but her 
sister Janie, who was delicate like her brothers, 
needed all her care, and was at last ordered by the 
doctor to live in a warmer climate. This set Ma 
dreaming again. "If only I could take her out to 
Calabar with me," she mused, "we could live 
cheaply in a native hut, and it might save her life." 
But the Mission Board did not think this would be 
right, and Mary, who had a quick brain as well as 
a warm heart, at once carried Janie off to Devon- 
shire, that lovely county in the south of England, 



42 THE WHITE QUEEN OF OKOYONG 

where she rented a house with a garden and nursed 
and cared for the invalid. Very sorrowfully she 
gave up the work in Calabar she loved so much, but 
she felt that her sister needed her most. Then she 
brought down her mother, and they lived happily 
together, and Janie grew strong in the sunshine 
and fresh air. After a time Ma thought they could 
be left, and, after getting an old companion down 
from Dundee to look after them, she went out again 
to Africa. 

Her new station was Creek Town, a little farther 
away, where the missionary was her dear friend 
Mr. Goldie, the etubom akamba, the "big master." 
Here she lived more plainly than ever, for she needed 
now to send a larger sum of money in order to 
keep the home in Devonshire. But she had not 
long to do this loving service, for first her mother, 
and then her sister, died. All the rest of the fam- 
ily of seven had now passed away, and Ma was 
alone in the world. She never quite got over her 
grief and her longing for them all, and to the end 
of her life was dreaming a sweet dream of 
the time when she would meet them again in 
heaven. 

With no home-hearts to love she began to lavish 
her affection on the black children, and was specially 
fond of Janie, who trotted at her side all day and 
slept in her bed at night. She was a lively thing, 
full of fun and tricks, and it was curious that the 



THE WHITE QUEEN OF OKOYONG 43 

people should be so afraid of her. They would not 
touch her even if Ma was there. 

One day a man came to the Mission House who 
said he was her father. 

"Then," said Ma, "you will come and see her." 

"Oh, no," he replied, with fear in his eyes, "I 
could not." 

Ma looked at him with scorn. "What harm can 
a wee girlie do you?" she asked. "Come 
along." 

"Well, I'll look from a distance." 

"Hoots," she cried, and seizing him by the arm 
dragged him close to the child, who was alarmed 
and clung to Ma. 

"My lassie, this is your father, give him a hug." 

The child put her arms round the man's neck 
and he did not mind, and indeed his fierce face grew 
soft, and he sat down and took her gently on his 
knee and petted her, and was so delighted with her 
pretty ways that he would hardly give her up. After 
that he came often and brought her gifts of food. 
Thus Ma tried to show the people that there was 
nothing wrong with twins, and that it was a cruel 
and senseless thing to kill them. 

There were other children, both boys and girls, in 
the home, whom Ma had saved from sickness or 
death, and these she trained to do housework and 
bake and go to market, and when their work was 
done she taught them from their Efik lesson books, 



44 THE WHITE QUEEN OF OKOYONG 

and by and by they were able to help her in school 
and church by looking after all the little things that 
needed to be done. The oldest was a girl of thir- 
teen, a kind of Cinderella, who was always in the 
kitchen, but who was very honest and truthful and 
loved her Ma. 

Besides these there were always a number of 
refugees in the yard-rooms outside, a woman, per- 
haps, who had been ill-used by her masters and had 
run away, or girls broken in body and mind, who 
had been brought down from the country to be sold 
as slaves and whom Ma had rescued, or sick peo- 
ple who came from far distances to get the white 
woman's medicine to be healed. 

It was a busy life which Ma lived in and out 
amongst the huts and villages of the Creek; but she 
was happy, like all busy people who love their work 
and are doing good. 




The Landing Beach at Ekenge. 



CHAPTER III 

Ma's great adventure : how she went up-river by herself in 
a canoe and lived in a forest amongst a savage tribe; how 
she fought their terrible customs and saved many lives; 
how she built a hut for herself and then a church, and how 
she took a band of the wild warriors down to the coast and 
got them to be friends with the people who had always 
been their sworn enemies. 



Ma felt that she was not getting to the heart of 
things. 

Behind that wall of bush, for hundreds of miles 
inland, lay a vast region of forest and river into 
which white men had not yet ventured. It was 
there that the natives lived almost like wild beasts, 
and where the most terrible crimes against women 
and children were done without any one lifting a 
finger to stop them. It was there that the biggest 
work for Jesus was to be carried on. "If only I 
could get amongst these people," she said, "and at- 
tack their customs at the root; that is where they 
must be destroyed." 

45 



46 THE WHITE QUEEN OF OKOYONG 

She dreamed of it night and day, and laid her 
plans. 

One district lying between two rivers behind 
Creek Town, called Okoyong, was specially noted 
for its lawless heathenism. The tribe who lived 
there was strong, proud, warlike, and had become 
the terror of the whole country. Every man, 
woman, and child of them went about armed, and 
even ate and slept with their guns and swords by 
their side ; they roamed about in bands watching 
the forest paths, and attacked and captured all 
whom they met, and sold them as slaves or sent 
them away to be food for the cannibals. They and 
the people of the coast were sworn enemies. 

Ma knew all about them, and was eager to go 
into their midst to teach them better ways. She 
pled with the Mission leaders at Duke Town. "I 
am not afraid," she said; "I am alone now and 
have nobody to be anxious about me." 

But the missionaries shook their heads. "No, 
no, it is too dangerous," they told her. 

And her friends the traders said, "It is a gun- 
boat they want, Ma, not a missionary." 

It was hard for her eager spirit to wait. For 
fourteen years she had worked in the factory at 
Dundee, for ten more she had toiled in the towns 
on the Calabar River, and she was now a grown 
woman. But God often keeps us at a task far 
longer than we ourselves think is good for us, for 



THE WHITE QUEEN OF OKOYONG 47 



He knows best, and if we are patient to the end He 
lets us do even more than we had hoped for. So 
it was with Mary Slessor. She was at last allowed 
to go. 

The Okoyong people, however, would not have 
her. 

"We want no 
missionary, man or 
woman," they said 
sullenly. 

For a whole year 
messengers went up 
and down the river, 
but the tribe re- 
mained firm. Then 
Ma said : 

"I'll go myself 
and see them." 

One hot June day she got the loan of King Eyo's 
canoe, a hollow tree-trunk twenty feet long, on 
which there was a little arch of palm leaves to 
shade her from the sun, and set out up the Calabar 
River. As she lay back on a pillow she thought 
how pretty and peaceful the scene was — the calm 
water gleaming in the light of the sky, the cotton 
trees and bananas and palms along the banks, the 
brilliant birds and butterflies flitting about. The 
only sound was the dip of the paddles and the soft 
voices of the men singing about their Ma. And 




The Okoyong District. 



48 THE WHITE QUEEN OF OKOYONG 

then she thought of what might lie before her, of 
the perils of the forest, and the anger of the blood- 
thirsty Okoyong, and wondered if she had done 
right. 

"We'll have a cup of tea, anyhow," she said to 
herself, and got out an old paraffin stove, but found 
that matches had been forgotten. Coming to a 
farm the canoe swung into a mud-beach, and Ma 
went ashore, and was happy to find that the owner 
was a "big" man whom she knew. He gave her 
some matches, and on they went again. When 
the tea was ready Ma opened a tin of stewed steak 
and cut up a loaf of home-made bread. 

"Boy," she said, "where is the cup?" 

"No cup, Ma — forgotten." 

"Bother! now what shall I do?" 

"I wash out that steak tin, Ma." 

"Right ; if you use what you have you will never 
want." 

But alas ! the tin slipped out of his hand and sank. 

Ma was a philosopher. "Ah, well," she said, "it 
cannot be helped. I'll drink out of the saucer." 

Ma was really very timid. Just before leaving 
Devonshire she would not go out on Guy Fawkes' 
Day, because she shrank from the crowds who were 
parading the streets; and yet, here she was going 
alone into an unknown region in Africa to face un- 
tamed savages. What made her so courageous was 
her faith in God. She believed that He wanted 



THE WHITE QUEEN OF OKOYONG 49 




Canoe being made out of a Tree-trunk. 



her to do this bit of work, and that therefore He 

would take care of her. She would not carry a 

weapon of any kind. Even David, when he went 

out to fight Goliath, had a sling and a stone as well 

as his faith. Ma 

was going to fight 

a much bigger 

giant, and she 

took nothing with 

her but a bright 

face and a heart 

full of love and 

sympathy. She 

was more like 

Jesus, who faced 

His enemies with nothing but the power of His spirit. 

The paddlers landed her at a strip of beach on 
the river, and with a fast-beating heart she trudged 
along the forest path for about four miles until she 
reached a village called Ekenge. 

Shouts arose : "Ma has come ! Ma has come !" 
and a crowd rushed forward. To her surprise they 
seemed pleased to see her. "You are brave to come 
alone," they said; "that is good." 

The chief, who was called Edem, was sober, and 
he would not allow her to go on farther, because 
the people at the next village were drunk and might 
harm her. So she stayed the night at Ekenge. 

"I am not very particular about my bed now- 



50 THE WHITE QUEEN OF OKOYONG 

adays," she told a friend, "but as I lay on a few 
dirty sticks laid across and across and covered with 
a litter of dirty corn-shells, with plenty of rats and 
insects, three women and an infant three days old 
alongside, and over a dozen goats and sheep and 
cows and countless dogs outside, you don't wonder 
that I slept little! But I had such a comfortable 
quiet night in my own heart." 

Next day all the big men of the district came to 
see her, and her winsome ways won them over, and 
they agreed to give her ground for a church and 
school, and promised that when these were built 
they would be places of refuge into which hunted 
people could fly and be safe. 

She was so happy that she did not mind the rain, 
which came on and wetted her to the skin as she 
walked back through the forest to the river. The 
tide, too, was against the paddlers, so they had to 
put the canoe into a cove and tie it to a tree for 
two hours. Ma was cold and shivery, and lay 
watching the brown crabs fighting in the mud, but 
she dared not sleep in case a crocodile or snake 
might make an attack. The men kept very quiet, 
and sometimes she heard them whisper, "Speak 
softly and let Ma sleep," or "Don't shake the canoe 
and wake Ma." When they started again she grad- 
ually passed into sleep, and only wakened to see 
the friendly lamps of Creek Town gleaming like 
stars through the night. 



THE WHITE QUEEN OF OKOYONG 51 

A month or two later she was ready to go and 
make her home among the Okoyong. The people 
of Creek Town were alarmed, and tried to make 
her give up the idea. 

"Do you think any one will listen to you?" 

"Do you think they will lay aside their weapons 
of war for you?" 

"We shall never see you again." 

"You are sure to be murdered." 

Such were some of the things said to her. But 
she just smiled, and thought how little there was 
to fear when Jesus was with her. 

"I am going," she wrote home, "to a new tribe 
up-country, a fierce, cruel people, and every one tells 
me they will kill me. But I don't fear any hurt. 
Only — to combat their savage customs will require 
courage and firmness on my part." 

The night before she left she could not sleep for 
thinking and wondering about all that was before 
her, and lay listening to the dripping of the rain 
until daylight. When she heard the negro carriers 
coming for the packages she rose. It was still wet, 
and the men were miserable and grumbled and 
quarrelled amongst themselves until good King Eyo 
arrived and took them in hand. Seeing how 
nervous she was he sat down beside her and cheered 
her up, saying that he would send secret messengers 
from time to time to find out how she was getting 
on, and that she was to let him know if ever she 



52 THE WHITE QUEEN OF OKOYONG 



needed help. Her courage and smiles came back, 
and she jumped up, gathered her children together, 
and walked down to the beach. Amidst the sighs 
and sobs and farewells of the people she stepped 
into the canoe. 

"Good-bye, good-bye," she cried to every one, 
and the canoe sped into the 
middle of the stream and was 
lost in the mist and the rain. 
It was night when the 
landing-beach was reached, 
and the stars were hidden 
by rain-clouds. As Ma 
stepped ashore on the mud- 
bank and looked into the 
dark forest and thought of 
the long journey before her, 
and the end of it, her heart 
failed. She might lose her 
way in that unlit tangle of 
wood. She would meet wild 
beasts, the natives might be 
feasting and drinking and unwilling to receive her. 
A score of shadowy terrors arose in her imagina- 
tion. For a moment she wished she could turn back 
to the safe shelter of her home, but when she 
thought of Jesus and what He had done for her, 
sake, how He was never afraid, but went forward 
calm and fearless even to His death on the Cross, 




'Plunged into the Depths 
of the Forest." 



THE WHITE QUEEN OF OKOYONG 53 

she felt ashamed of her weakness, and, calling the 
children, she plunged stoutly into the black depths 
of the forest. 

What a queer procession it was! The biggest 
boy, eleven years old, went first with a box of 
bread and tea and sugar on his head, next a laddie 
of eight with a kettle and pots, then a wee fellow 
of three sturdily doing his best, but crying as if his 
heart would break. Janie followed, also sobbing, 
and lastly the white mother herself carrying Annie, 
a baby slave-girl, on her shoulder, and singing gaily 
to cheer the others, but there was often a funny 
little break in her voice as she heard the scream 
of the vampire-bat or the stealthy tread and growl- 
ing of wild animals close at hand. 

Brushing against dripping branches, stumbling 
in the black and slippery mud, tired and hungry 
and wretched, they made their way to Ekenge. 
When they arrived all was quiet, and no one greeted 
them. 

"Strange," said Ma to herself, for a village wel- 
come is always a noisy one. She shouted, and two 
slaves appeared. 

"Where is the chief? Where are the people?" 
she asked. 

"Gone to the death- feast at Ifako, the next vil- 
lage, Ma." 

"Then bring me some fire and water." 

She made tea for the children, undressed them, 



54 THE WHITE QUEEN OF OKOYONG 

huddled them naked in a corner to sleep, and sat 
down in her wet things to wait for the carriers, who 
were bringing the boxes with food and dry clothes. 
A messenger arrived, but it was to tell her that the 
men were too worn out to carry anything that night. 
She jumped to her feet, and, bareheaded and bare- 
footed, dived into the forest to return to the river. 
She had not gone far when she heard the pitter- 
patter of feet. She stopped. 

"Ma ! Ma !" a voice cried. It was the messenger. 
He loved Ma, and, unhappy at the thought of her 
tramping along that lonesome trail, he had followed 
her to keep her company. Together they ran, now 
tripping and falling, now dashing into a tree, now 
standing still trembling, as they heard some rush- 
ing sound or weird cry. 

When she came to the beach she waded out to 
the canoe, lifted the covering, and roused the sleep- 
ing natives. They grumbled a good deal, but even 
these big rough men could not withstand Ma's coax- 
ing, masterful ways, and they had soon the boxes 
on their heads and were marching merrily in single 
file along the wet and dark path to Ekenge. She 
made them put the packages into the hut which 
Edem, the chief, had allotted to her, a small, dirty 
place with mud walls, no window, and only an open 
space for a door. When everything was piled up 
inside there was hardly room for herself and the 
[children, but she lay down on the boxes, and as it 



THE WHITE QUEEN OF OKOYONG 55 



was after midnight, and she was weary and foot- 
sore, she soon fell into a deep sleep. 

When the chief and his followers came back 
from the revels at Ifako they welcomed Ma, for it 
was an honour for a white woman to live in their 
midst. But they had no idea of changing their 
ways of life for her, and went on day and night 
drinking rum and gin, danc- 
ing, and making sacrifices to 
their jujus or gods. Some- 
times the din was so great 
that Ma never got a wink of 
sleep. The yard was full of ^C.^ 
half-naked slave-women, who \ JT 
were always scolding and 
quarrelling. Some were 
wicked and hateful, and did 
not want such a good white 
Ma to be with them, and 
tried to force her to leave. 
But there was one who 
was kind to her, Erne Ete, 

a sister of the chief, who had a sad story. One 
day she told it to Ma. She had been married to 
a chief who had not treated her well. When he 
died his followers put the blame on his wives, and 
they were seized and brought to trial. It was an 
odd way they had of testing guilt or innocence. As 
each wife stepped forward the head of a fowl was 




Ma Eme Ete. 



56 THE WHITE QUEEN OF OKOYONG 

cut off, and the people watched to see how the body- 
fell. If it lay in a certain way she was innocent; 
if in another way, she was guilty! How Erne Ete 
trembled when her turn came! When she knew 
she was safe she fainted. 

Erne Ete was big in body and big in heart. To 
Ma she showed herself gentle and refined, and acted 
towards her as a white lady would, caring for 
her comfort, watching over her safety, going to her 
meetings, and helping her in her work. They grew 
to be like sisters. Yet Erne Ete was always a little 
bit of a mystery to Ma. She wanted the people to 
change their old ways, but she herself would not, 
and went on with her bush-worship and sacrifices, 
and never became a Christian. But of all the na- 
tive women Ma ever met, there was none she loved 
so well as this motherly heathen soul. 

In the yard there were also many boys and girls. 
Ma was fond of children, but these ones were not 
nice : they stole and lied and made themselves a 
trouble to everybody. "Oh, dear," she sighed, 
"what can I do with such bairns?" But she re- 
membered what her Master said, "Suffer little chil- 
dren to come unto Me and forbid them not"; and 
she gathered them about her, took the wee ones in 
her arms and nursed them, made clothes for their 
bodies, and taught them what it was to be clean 
and sweet and good. When the sick babies died 
she would not let the people throw them away into 



THE WHITE QUEEN OF OKOYONG 57 

the bush, as they usually did, but put them into lit- 
tle boxes on which she laid some flowers, and 
buried them in a piece of ground that she chose for 
a cemetery. "Why, Ma," said the natives in won- 
der, "what is a dead child ? You can have hundreds 
of them." 

None of the children could read or write, nor, 
indeed, could any of the older people, and so Ma 
started schools, which she held in the open air in 
the shade of the forest trees. At first everybody 
came, even the grey-headed men and women, and 
learned A B C in Efik and sang the hymns that Ma 
taught them. The beautiful birds which flew above 
their heads must have wondered, for they had only 
been accustomed to the wild chant of war-songs. 
And at night the twinkling stars must have twinkled 
harder when they looked down and saw, not a crowd 
of people drinking and fighting, but a quiet com- 
pany, and a white woman standing talking to them 
in grave sweet tones about holy things. 

But when Ma spoke about their bad customs they 
would not listen. "Ma," they would say, "we 
like you and we want to learn book and wear clothes, 
but we don't want to put away our old fash- 
ions." 

"Well," replied Ma patiently, "we shall see." 

And so the battle began. 

The first time she failed, because she did not 
know what was happening. A lad had been accused 



58 THE WHITE QUEEN OF OKOYONG 

of some fault, and she saw him standing, girt with 
chains, holding out his arms before a pot of boiling 
oil. A man took a ladle and dipped it into the 
burning stuff, which he began to pour over the boy's 
hands. Ma sprang forward, but was too late; the 
boy screamed and rolled on the ground in agony. 
She was very angry, especially when they told her 
the meaning of the thing. It was a test to show 
whether the boy was innocent or guilty of the 
charge brought against him. If he had not been 
guilty, they said, he would not have suffered. 

"Oh, you stupid creatures," cried Ma. "Every- 
body will suffer if you do that to them. Let me 
try it on you," she said to the man with the ladle, 
but he rushed off amidst the laughter of the crowd. 

Next time she did better. A slave was blamed 
for using witchcraft, and condemned to die. Ma 
knew he was innocent, and went and stood beside 
him in front of the armed warriors of the chief, and 
said: 

"This man has done no wrong. You must not 
put him to death." 

"Ho, ho," they cried, "that is not good speak- 
ing. We have said he shall die, and he must die." 

"No, no; listen," and she tried to reason with 
them, but they came round her waving their swords 
and guns, and shouting at the pitch of their voices. 
She stood in the midst of them as she had stood in 
the midst of the Dundee roughs, pale, but calm and 



THE WHITE QUEEN OF OKOYONG 59 

unafraid. The more angry and excited and threat- 
ening they grew the cooler she became. Perhaps it 
was her wonderful courage which did not fail her 
even when the swords were flashing about her head, 
perhaps it was the strange light that shone in her 
face that awed and quietened them, but the con- 
fusion died down and ceased. Then the chiefs 
agreed for her sake not to kill the man, but they 
put heavy chains upon his arms and legs, and 
starved and flogged him until he was a mass of 
bleeding flesh. Ma felt she had not done much, 
but it was a beginning. 

People at a distance heard of her, and one day 
messengers came from a township many miles 
away to ask her to visit their chief, who was be- 
lieved to be dying. 

"And what will happen if he dies?" asked Ma. 

"All his wives and slaves will be killed," was the 
prompt reply. 

"Then I will come at once," she said. 

"Ma," put in Chief Edem, "you must not go. 
They are cruel people and may do you hurt. Then 
see the rain; all the rivers will be flowing and you 
cannot cross." 

But Ma thought of the women who might be 
murdered, and she went. The rain poured down, 
and as she fought her way for eight hours through 
the forest her clothes became soaked and torn, and 
she threw most of them off and left them. As she 



60 THE WHITE QUEEN OF OKOYONG 



trudged with bare head and bare feet through the 
villages on the way, she looked very ragged and 
forlorn, and the people gazed at her in wonder. 
When she reached the township she found the men 
armed and ready to begin the slaughter, and the 
women sad and afraid. Although she was wet and 
cold and feverish, she went straight to the hut of 
the sick chief and nursed him, 
and gradually brought him back 
to health, so that there was no 
more thought of sacrifice and 
blood. 

Her next trouble was in her 
own yard. Edem, her chief, 
was kind to her, but he was 
also under the power of the 
old bad ideas and believed in 
the witch-doctors, cunning fel- 
lows who pretended to know 
the cause of sickness and how 
to cure it. Falling ill he called 
in one of these medicine-men, 
who declared that an enemy had placed a number of 
things in his body, and made believe to take them out. 
When Ma came Edem held them up — cartridges, 
powder, teeth, bones, eggshells, and seeds — and said, 
"Ma, a dreadful battle has been going on during the 
night. See what wicked persons have done to me." 
Her heart sank : she knew what would follow. 




Chief Edem. 



THE WHITE QUEEN OF OKOYONG 61 

Sure enough, a number of men and women were 
seized and chained to posts and condemned to die. 
Ma set herself to save them. She begged and coaxed 
the sick man so much on their behalf that at last 
she wearied him, and he got his followers to 
carry him secretly away to one of his farms. Ma 
could only pray, and she prayed that he might get 
better. By and by strength did return, and the 
prisoners were released, only one woman being put 
to death. 

No sooner was this trial ended than a worse came. 
A chief whom Ma feared, a very cruel and blood- 
thirsty man, paid a visit to Edem. He and his fol- 
lowers did nothing but drink, and soon they were 
mad with the fiery liquor, and the whole village was 
in a violent uproar. Ma bravely went into the midst 
of the mob and sought to calm them. She saw 
that the best thing to do was to get the visitors 
away, and she hurried them off as quickly as possi- 
ble, going with them herself in order to prevent 
bloodshed on the way, for they wanted to fight 
every one they met. In the forest path they saw 
some withered plants and leaves on the ground. 
"Sorcery," they yelled, and fled back in a panic — 
they thought these things had magic in them and 
were meant to do them harm. 

"Let us go to the last village and kill every one in 
it," they shouted; "they have tried to bewitch us." 

And they rushed pell-mell along the path flourish- 



62 THE WHITE QUEEN OF OKOYONG 

ing their swords and shouting their terrible war- 
cries. Ma prayed for swiftness, and ran until she 
came in front of them, and then, turning, she threw 
out her arms and breathlessly dared them to pass. 
It seemed a mad thing to do, but again that some- 
thing in her face made them stop. They argued 
with her and then they obeyed her, and went for- 
ward by another path. But they began to dance 
and caper and fight each other, until Ma, with the 
help of some of the soberer ones, tied the worst to 
the trees. The others went on, and she did not 
leave them until they were safe in their own district. 
On the way back she unloosed the drunken prisoners, 
who were now in a raging temper, and sent them 
home with their hands fastened behind their backs. 
But that was not the end. Next day the cruel 
chief went to the village that was blamed for laying 
the things on the path, and although it did not be- 
long to him, but to Edem, he made the people take 
ordeals, and carried away a young man in hand- 
cuffs to put him to death. Ma hastened to the chief. 
He was rude and rough, and laughed at her, 
but she tried not to mind, and begged hard for the 
lad's life. When she returned she found that Edem 
was getting ready to fight, and she prayed earnestly 
that the heart of the cruel chief might be softened. 
It was softened, for news came that the pris- 
oner had been sent home, and so there was peace 
and not war. 



THE WHITE QUEEN OF OKOYONG 63 

Ma began to wonder how long she would be able 
to live in the midst of such sin and dirt. She had 
hung a door at the opening of her mud-room, and 
made a hole in the wall for a window and curtained 
it with pieces of cloth, but the place was so small 
that at night she had to lift her boxes outside in 
order to give herself and the children room to sleep. 
It was overrun with rats and lizards and beetles and 
all sorts of biting insects. She could not get away 
from the squabbling and bad language and rioting 
of the wives and slaves, and was often tired and ill. 
It was the thought of Jesus that gave her patience 
and courage. She remembered how He had left His 
home above the stars and dwelt on earth amongst 
men who were unlovely and wicked and cruel, and 
how He never grumbled or gave in, though life to 
Him was often bitter and hard. "Shall I not fol- 
low my Master," she said, "because my way is not 
easy and not nice? Yes, I will be His true disciple 
and be strong and brave." 

She was longing to be alone sometimes to read 
her Bible and think and pray in quiet, and one 
day she started to build a little hut of her own some 
distance away from the others. First she fixed 
stout tree-trunks in the ground, and on the tops of 
these, cross-wise, she laid other pieces. Sticks were 
then placed between the uprights, and strips of bam- 
boo, beaten until soft, were fastened in and out, 
just as the threads had been woven in the loom 



64 THE WHITE QUEEN OF OKOYONG 

of the Dundee factory. This was the skeleton of 
the hut, and when Ma looked at it she clapped her 
hands with delight. 

"It's like playing a game," she said to the chil- 
dren. 

The walls were next made by throwing in large 
lumps of red clay between the sticks. When the 
clay was dry the surface was rubbed smooth, and 
then mats of palm leaves were laid on the top and 
tied down to form the roof. 

"Now for the furniture," she said. With 
kneaded lumps of clay she built up a fireplace, and 
moulded a seat beside it where the cook could sit, 
then made a sideboard, in which holes were scooped 
out for cups and bowls and plates, and a long couch, 
which she meant for herself. All these were beaten 
hard and polished and darkened with a native dye. 

The flitting was great fun to the children. So 
many of the pots and pans and jars were hung on 
bits of wood on the posts outside that Ma declared 
the house was like one of the travelling caravans 
she used to see in Scotland ; and so she called it 
"The Caravan." When everything was finished she 
stood and looked at it with a twinkle in her eye. "Be 
it ever so humble," she said gaily, "there's no place 
like home!" Then they sat down to a merry meal. 
What did it matter if there was only one dish and 
no spoons or forks? There was no happier family 
in all the land that night. 



THE WHITE QUEEN OF OKOYONG 65 

Ma was now able to read her Bible in peace and 
pray to God in quietness and comfort. But outside 
she had still the goats and fowls and rats and the 
insects and even the wild things of the forest, and 
sometimes they came in. One morning when she 
awoke, she saw on her bed a curious thing, and 
found that it was the skin of a snake that had 
stolen in during the night and shed its old clothes 
as these reptiles sometimes do. So she began to 
dream of a bigger house with an upstairs, where she 
could be safer. 

But first there must be a church. The chief and 
free men and women helped, and by and by there 
rose a long roomy shed, complete, except for a 
door and windows. What a day it was when it was 
set apart and used for the worship of God — the first 
church in wild Okoyong ! 

Ma told the people that they could not come to 
God's house except with clean bodies and clean 
hearts. Few of them had clean clothes, or clothes 
at all, and the children never wore any. But Ma 
had been receiving boxes from Sunday Schools and 
work-parties in Scotland, and out of these she 
dressed the women and little ones in pinafores of 
all colours. How proud and happy they were! 
But the excitement died into quietness and reverence 
when they went inside the building, and an awe 
fell upon them as Ma explained what a church 
meant, and that God was in their midst. 



66 THE WHITE QUEEN OF OKOYONG 

The chiefs rose and said that they would respect 
the building, that no weapon of war would ever 
be brought into it, and that all their quarrels would 
be left outside; and they promised to send their 
followers to the services and their children to the 
schools. 

But like some better people at home these way- 
ward savages could not be good for long. They 
went back to their evil doings, and were soon away 
raiding and fighting, leaving only a few women and 
the children in the village. It was the rum and gin 
that caused most of the mischief. Every one drank, 
and often Ma went to bed knowing that there was 
not one sober person for miles around. The horrible 
stuff came up from the coast, having been shipped 
overseas from Christian countries. Ma never ceased 
to wonder how white men could seek to ruin native 
people for the sake of money. It made her very 
angry, and she fought the trade with all her power. 

"Do you know," she said one day to her chief, 
"you drink because you have not enough work? 
We have a rhyme in our country which says, 

Satan finds some mischief still 
For idle hands to do. 

Why don't you trade with Calabar?" 

He grinned. "We do trade with Calabar," he 
said ; "we trade in heads." 

"Well, you must trade in palm oil and food 
instead. And first you must make peace." 



THE WHITE QUEEN OF OKOYONG 67 

"We can't do that, Ma, because Calabar won't 
come to Okoyong." 

"Of course not, because they are afraid, and 
rightly too. Well, if they won't come to you, you 
must go to them." 

"But, Ma, we would never come back." 

"Tuts ! I will go with you." 

She made them go to the river and get a large 
canoe and fill it with yams and plantains (these 
were gifts for the Calabar people), and with bags 
of palm nuts and a barrel of oil (these were to begin 
trading with). But they knew little about boats, 
and they loaded it so high that it sank. Another 
was got, and all was ready, when some of the chiefs 
drew back and said they would only go if Ma al- 
lowed them to take their guns and swords. 

"No, no," she said, "that would be foolish. We 
are going in peace and not in war." 

"Ma, you make women of us! No man goes to 
a strange place without arms." 

But she would not yield, and they started. 
Suddenly she caught sight of some swords hidden 
under the bags of nuts, and, stooping, she seized 
them and pitched them out on the bank. "Go on," 
she cried, and the canoe swept down the river. 

King Eyo received the trembling chiefs like a 
Christian gentleman, spoke to them kindly, and 
showed them over his large house. There was a 
palaver, and all quarrels between the two peoples 



68 THE WHITE QUEEN OF OKOYONG 

were made up, and all evil thoughts of one another 
vanished, and the men from Okoyong went back 
astonished and joyful. They began to trade with 
the coast, and so busy did they become in their 
fields growing food and making palm oil that they 
had less time for drinking and fighting, and grew 
more sober and prosperous. 

They were very grateful to Ma. 
"We are not treating her well," they said to 
one another. "We must build her a better house." 
And they began to erect a large one with upstairs 
rooms and a verandah, but they could not manage 
the woodwork. Ma begged the Mission authorities 
to send up a carpenter to put in the doors and 
windows, and by and by one came from Scotland, 
named Mr. Ovens, and appeared at Ekenge with 
his tools and Tom, a native apprentice, and set to 
work. Mr. Ovens was bright and 
cheery, and had a laugh that made 
everybody else want to laugh ; and he 
made so light of the hard life he had 
to live that Ma praised God for send- 
ing him. Like herself, he spoke the 
dear Scots tongue, and at night he 
sang the plaintive songs of their native 
land until she was ready to echo the words of Tom, 
"Master, I don't like these songs, they make my 
heart big and my eyes water." 





MWMwMJ 



: £*- 






st- 



JUDGE SLESSOR IN COURT. 

CHAPTER IV 

Stories of how Ma kept an armed mob at bay and saved 
the lives of a number of men and women; how in answer 
to a secret warning she tramped a long distance in the 
dark to stop a war; how she slept by a camp-fire in the 
heart of the forest, and how she became a British Consul 
and ruled Okoyong like a Queen. 

A low wailing cry, with a note of terror in it, 
drifted out of the forest into the sunshine of the 
clearing where Ma was sitting watching the work 
on the new house. She leapt to her feet, and 
listened with a far-away look on her face. Next 
moment she sprang in amongst the trees and 
disappeared. 

Mr. Ovens saw that the natives about him were 
uneasy, and when a messenger came running up 
and said, "You have to go to Ma and take medicine 
69 



70 THE WHITE QUEEN OF OKOYONG 

for an accident," they burst into loud lamentations. 
On reaching the spot he found that Etim, the son 
of the chief, a lad about twenty years of age, had 
been caught by a log which he had been handling, 
and struck senseless to the ground. 

"This is not good for us," Ma said, shaking her 
head. "The people believe that accidents are 
caused by witchcraft, the witch-doctor will be 
called in to smell out the guilty ones, and many 
will suffer." 

They carried the lad home, and she nursed him 
day and night, but life ebbed away; and one 
Sunday morning when all was quiet and beautiful, 
she heard again that strange wailing sound which 
told of peril and death. She rushed to the scene. 
The men were blowing smoke from a lighted palm 
leaf into the lad's nose, rubbing pepper into his 
eyes, and shouting into his ears to keep back the 
spirit. 

"Silly babies," she could not help saying to 
herself. 

"He is dead," cried the chief, and giving the 
body to Ma he shouted in a terrible voice : 

"He has been killed by sorcerers, and they must 
die! Where is the witch-doctor?" 

The witch-doctor came, an evil-looking man 
with cunning eyes, and after humming and hawing 
he blamed the people in a village near the spot 
where the accident happened. 



THE WHITE QUEEN OF OKOYONG 71 

"Off! seize them!" called the chief to his 
freemen. 

But a swift foot had secretly carried a warning 
to the village, and Chief Akpo and his followers 
had fled. Only a dozen men, and some women and 
babies who could not run, were captured, and they 
were loaded with chains and brought to Ekenge 
and imprisoned in a yard. 

Ma felt that this was a big affair, and perhaps 
the turning-point in her life amongst the Okoyong. 

"If these people are killed," she said, "all my 
work will be undone. I must prevent it at any 
cost." 

And first she went away by herself and knelt 
down and prayed, and then came back calm and 
strong. 

She knew what the natives liked, and hoping to 
please and soften Edem, she said to him, "I am 
going to honour your son." From her boxes she 
brought out fine silk cloth of many colours, shirts 
and vests and other clothes, and put them on the 
dead body. The head was shaved and painted 
yellow, and upon it was wound a turban, and above 
that a black and scarlet hat with plumes of feathers, 
and an umbrella. To one hand was tied a stick, 
and to the other a whip. Last of all a mirror was 
placed in front of the dead eyes, because the people 
believed the spirit would see what had been done 
and be glad. There he sat, the lifeless boy, with 



72 THE WHITE QUEEN OF OKOYONG 

all his finery, a sad queer sight. When the people 
came in they yelled with delight, and danced and 
called for rum to make merry. Barrel after barrel 
was brought and emptied, and they began to grow 
wild, leaping about with swords and guns, and 
singing their weird tribal songs. 

"Humph!" said Ma, "my cure seems to be as 
bad as the disease. Still, they have forgotten the 
prisoners." 

These were chained to posts, and expected every 
minute to have their heads chopped off. They 
were all very miserable. The babies were crying, 
and there was a girl of fifteen who clung weeping 
to her mother, and ran up to any one who came, 
saying piteously, "Oh, I'll be a slave for life if only 
you will spare my mother." 

Ma turned to Mr. Ovens. "We must not leave 
these poor creatures. You will watch by day, and 
I will watch by night, and we may save them yet." 

So time and time about these two sat on guard. 
They had no weapons, they were alone in the midst 
of a drunken mob, and yet they had no fear, for 
they trusted God and believed that He would take 
care of them. 

Because they were there, Edem and his brother 
chiefs did not touch the prisoners. Some days 
passed. Then one afternoon Ma saw little brown 
objects lying on a stone. "Esere beans!" she 
exclaimed in alarm. These beans grow on a wild 




THE WHITE QUEEN OF OKOYONG 73 

vine, and are very poisonous. She knew they were 
to be crushed and put in water, and given to the 
prisoners with the idea of finding out who was 
guilty of the death of Etim. Of course all who 
drank the water would die, and 
the people would believe that 
justice had been done. That was 
the only kind of justice they 
knew. 

Ma sought out the chiefs and The " Ese r£ Bean . 
told them they must not do this 
wicked thing, and when they put her aside she 
followed them about and begged and worried them 
until they became angry. 

"Let us alone," they cried. "What does it 
matter? Your God will not let the innocent die." 

Their followers grew excited, and some of them 
lost control of themselves and hustled Ma and 
threatened her. 

"Make the dead live," they snarled, "and we 
shall give you the prisoners." 

Ma's reply was to sit down and look at them 
with stern eyes. 

"I will not move from here," she said firmly, 
"until you set all these poor people free." 

It was night. Stealthy steps came into the 
yard. In the darkness Ma saw two men take away 
one of the mothers. She looked at the woman 
going to her death, and at the others, who pled 



74 THE WHITE QUEEN OF OKOYONG 

with her to remain, for they feared this was a trick 
to get her away. What should she do? Praying 
and hoping that she was right, she ran after the 
mother, and was just in time, for the woman was 
raising the poisoned water to her lips. 

"Don't," cried Ma, and giving her a push she 
said, "Run." In an instant both jumped into the 
bush and made for Ma's hut. 

"Quick," Ma cried to Mr. Ovens, "hide this 
woman." 

He drew her in and piled up boxes against the 
door, and Ma ran swiftly back to the yard, where, 
to her joy, she found the other prisoners still safe. 
The warriors had been so astonished at what she 
had done that they had forgotten all about them. 

Through more weary and exciting days the 
struggle went on. The chiefs at last said gloomily, 
"We will set some of the prisoners free and see if 
Ma will be satisfied." After giving a number a 
terrible native oath, and making them swear they 
were not guilty, they handed them over to Ma. 

"Now," said the freeman, "we will kill the 
others." 

"No," said Ma, and dared them to do such a 
dreadful thing. 

They stormed and raged at her. 

"We shall burn down the house and yard." 

"All right," she retorted. "They are not 
mine." 



THE WHITE QUEEN OF OKOYONG 75 

More prisoners were released, and only three were 
left. Erne Ete came and knelt before her brother 
and begged him to set free one of them, a weak 
and timid creature, and this was done. A man and 
woman now remained, and Ma was resolved to save 
both. After a bitter struggle they let the man go, 
but nothing would make them give up the woman. 
She was doomed to death. 

One afternoon Ma was secretly told that the 
funeral and the murder were to take place that night, 
and she was sick at heart. But when darkness fell, 
unknown hands — were they the hands of Erne Ete? 
— cut the chains that bound the victim to the post, 
and with her leg irons on she crawled over the roof 
and found a refuge in Ma's room, from which, later, 
she fled to the freedom of the bush. 

So the funeral of the young chief took place, but 
only a cow was killed and put into the coffin. No 
human blood was shed. It was the first time in 
the history of the tribe that such a wonderful thing 
had happened, and it was due to Ma's heroism and 
faith. 

Two of the parties who went to the funeral met 
in the forest and quarrelled, and a man's head was 
cut off. War was declared, and there was much 
fighting before Ma got them to stop and settle the 
matter by palaver. "Blood for blood," was the 
verdict; "the murderer must die." It was a 
custom of the natives that another could suffer 



76 THE WHITE QUEEN OF OKOYONG 

in the place of one who was condemned. This 
man's friends offered his youngest brother, a little 
child, but the judge would not have him. Then 
a bigger brother was sent, and accepted. Before 
he could be killed, however, he escaped. One day 
Ma heard the sound of singing and joy-guns, and 
was told that he had been found and put to a cruel 
death before the eyes of his mother and sister. 

A day or two afterwards loud screams filled 
the air. Ma rushed out and saw the women and 
children fleeing towards her yard. 

"Egbo ! Egbo !" they cried. 

She listened, and heard the throb-throbbing of 
a drum. Egbo was a more dreadful thing in 
Okoyong than in Calabar, for there was no law 
against it. The men were dressed in leopards' 
skins and wore hideous masks, and carried long 
whips with which they flogged all whom they 
caught, and often killed them. Soon the village 
was filled with the queer figures, and shots were 
being fired. The women in the yard trembled in 
terror, and Ma prayed. By and by the noise died 
away, and on looking out she found that all had 
gone. Only one village had been destroyed. In 
revenge Edem armed his men, and they went after 
them, and shot down every straggler they came 
across. 

Then arose another trouble. The brother of 
Edem, called Ekpenyong, was accused of slaying 



THE WHITE QUEEN OF OKOYONG 77 

the dead lad Etim, and after drinking heavily 
he said he would take the poison ordeal to prove 
his innocence. When Ma arrived at his yard the 
women were clinging to him and trying to seize a 
bag which he held, and he was striking them fiercely. 

"He has the beans in the bag, Ma," they cried. 

She walked through the line of armed men who 
stood by. 

"Give me the bag," she said quietly to the chief. 

"No, Ma, there are only palm nuts and cartridges 
in it," he mumbled. 

"Give it to me." 

He threw it at her feet. She looked in and saw 
palm nuts and cartridges. Had he spoken the 
truth ? But deep at the bottom she came upon two- 
score of the poison beans. 

"I'll keep these," she told him. 

"You will not ! They are mine." 

"Give them back," shouted the warriors. 

Ma's heart beat wildly, but she walked down the 
ranks of the men, saying, "Here they are, take 
them." 

They were so amazed at her courage that they 
let her pass, and she went and hid the beans in her 
house. 

During the night Ekpenyong stole off to find 
more beans. Erne Ete sent Ma a secret message, 
and she rose and followed him, and coaxed him to 
take the native oath instead of the ordeal. 



78 THE WHITE QUEEN OF OKOYONG 



After all these wild doings the people came back 
to a better mind, and began to realise how brave 
and good Ma was; and at night, when she was 
alone with her bairns, they slipped in, one by one, 
and called her their great white mother, and thanked 
her with tears for all her love and devotion. 

Edem, too, was softened, and the thought of 
vengeance left his heart. 
Ma prevailed upon him to 
allow the chief who had 
run away to return. Poor 
■ Akpo! His village had 
$ kSp§?P5. 4*fffill been burnt to the ground, 
and all his goats and fowls 
and goods were lost. But 
Edem gave him a new 
piece of land, and seed for 
food plants. 

"Ah, Chief," said Ma, 

"that is the right way; 

that is the Jesus way." 

"Thank you, Ma." And he, too, came and 

knelt before her, and held her feet and poured out 

his gratitude for all she had done. 

"Go on, Ma," he said, "and teach us to do 
away with the bad old bush fashions. We are 
weary of them, they bind us like chains, and we 
need you to help us." 

These words thrilled Ma with happiness, and 




A Chief and his Children. 



THE WHITE QUEEN OF OKOYONG 79 

were a reward for all she had come through; but 
they made her humble too, for she knew that unless 
God had been with her she would not have borne up 
so long. 

Now that she was surer of herself and of that 
wondrous Power behind her, she grew bolder still, 
and went wherever trouble threatened. No place 
was too far for her to reach. Natives in distant 
parts were often surprised to see her walking into 
their midst when they were starting to fight. Once 
a secret message came, saying that two tribes, 
many miles away, were on the warpath. Ma was 
ill and weak and in bed, but she rose at once. 
Edem said, "Ma, you are going into a wild beast's 
den, and will not come out alive." 

Night fell as she was tramping along, and she 
was always nervous of the darkness and the mystery 
of the forest. The animals frightened her. "I 
prayed," she said, "that God would shut their 
mouths, and He did." At midnight she reached 
a village where she hoped to borrow a drum and 
a freeman to beat it before her as she marched, 
a sign that one under the protection of Egbo 
was coming. But the chief, a surly despot, 
would not see her, and would not give her the 
drum. 

"If there is a war," his message said, "a woman 
is not likely to stop it." 

Back went her reply. "You think only of the 



80 THE WHITE QUEEN OF OKOYONG 

woman. You have forgotten the woman's God. 
I go without a drum." 

On she went, and came at last to one of the 
villages where the trouble was brewing. All was 
silent and still. Suddenly, out of the darkness 
swarmed armed men and closed around her and 
demanded her business. 

"I have come to stop the war." 

They jeered at her, such a small, feeble woman, 
and smiled grimly. 

"You won't do that," they said. 

"We shall see. I want to have a palaver and 
hear the story." 

"All right, Ma," they replied, humouring her. 
"Go to sleep until second cock-crow and we shall 
wake you up and take you with us." But when she 
was awakened the band were already away on 
their errand of death. 

"Run, Ma, run and stop them !" cried the women, 
who feared what would happen; and she rushed 
breathlessly up and down steep tracks and through 
streams until she caught up with the warriors, who 
were making ready to attack and uttering their 
wild war whoops. 

She walked into their midst. 

"Don't go on like beardless boys," she said in 
scorn. "Be quiet." 

Then she went on until she came upon the 
enemy drawn up in line across the path. 



THE WHITE QUEEN OF OKOYONG 81 

"I salute you," said she. 

There was no reply. Why was this white woman 
interfering with them at such a moment? 

"Oho! I see you are gentlemen and have nice 
manners." 

They frowned. Things were looking dangerous, 
but Ma was never at a loss, and she began to smile 
and joke. Then stepped forward an old man and 
came and knelt at her feet. 

"Ma, you know me ? You remember you nursed 
and healed me?" 

It was the sick chief she had gone to see after 
she arrived at Ekenge. 

"Ma," he went on, "we confess that this quarrel 
is the fault of one of our foolish men, and it is a 
shame to bring evil on the whole town for one. 
We beg you to make peace." 

Ma's heart thrilled with joy, and soon she had 
a number of men from each side talking over the 
matter. Often it seemed as if war must come after 
all, and it needed all her patience to make them 
agree, but at last it was decided that a fine should 
be imposed. To her horror this was paid at once in 
gin, and every one began to drink. She knew they 
would soon get violent and fight after all, and was 
almost in despair. 

But taking off nearly all her clothes, she spread 
them over the boxes and bottles and dared any one 
to touch them. Only one glass would she give to 



82 THE WHITE QUEEN OF OKOYONG 

each of the head men. So disappointed were the 
others that they surged round her in anger, but 
some of the older and wiser men obtained whips 
and made themselves into a bodyguard to protect 
her. 

"If all of you go to your homes and don't fight," 
she said, "I'll promise to send the stuff after you." 

They believed her, and trooped away like 
children. 

It was night again when, worn out in body 
and mind, she tramped back through the dark 
and lonely forest, with crickets whistling and 
frogs croaking around her, and the little lamps 
of the fireflies pulsing in and out like the 
flashes of a lighthouse. But there was a light in 
her own face that even the fireflies could not 
outshine. 

Two years passed, two years of toil and hardship 
and strain. In the heat and rain, by day and 
night, Ma was never idle. If she was not tramping 
through the forest and putting down the customs 
of the people, she was busy with work about her 
own door, helping the women to sew and cook, 
teaching the children in school, preaching on week- 
days and Sundays, and doctoring all who were ill. 
It was a marvel she kept at it so long. Perhaps it 
was because she had such a happy spirit, saw the 
funny side of things, and laughed at her troubles. 
She was always ready with a joke, even when lying 



THE WHITE QUEEN OF OKOYONG 83 

ill in bed, and missionaries who went to see her 
usually found her as lively as a girl. 

At this time she lived in a way that would have 
killed any other white person. She did not wear a 
hat or boots or stockings; she went about thinly 
clad; she ate the coarse food of the natives; and 
although she was careful about the water she drank 
she did not filter or boil it, as all white people have 
to do in the Tropics. It made life simpler and 
easier, she said, not to bother about such things. 
How she did it no one knew ; the secret lay between 
her and God. 

Even she, however, gave in at last. She became 
so ill that she was taken to Duke Town a wreck 
and carried on board the steamer and sent home. 
Janie again went with her, a woolly-headed lassie 
with velvet skin, and eyes that were always ready 
to laugh. She was beginning now to think that it 
would be a fine thing to be a white girl. One night, 
in a house in Glasgow when she was being bathed, 
she took the sponge and began to scrub the soles 
of her feet, which were whiter than the rest of her 
body. "Why are you doing that, Janie?" she 
was asked. "Oh, because the white place is getting 
bigger, and if I scrub perhaps I'll be all white some 
day !" 

At this time Ma was dreaming another of her 
dreams. She wanted to see a place in Calabar 
where black boys could learn to use their hands as 



84 THE WHITE QUEEN OF OKOYONG 

well as their heads, and so be able to become good 
workmen and teachers, and help to build up their 
country and make it rich and prosperous. She 
wrote a long letter to the Church magazine telling 
about her idea, and it was thought to be so good 
that the Church did what she asked it to do, and 
started a school which has grown into the great 
Hope-Waddell Training Institution, where boys are 
being taught all sorts of things. 

Made strong by the home air and the love of 
new and kind friends, Ma fared forth again to her 
lonely outpost in the African backwoods. 

The people of Ekenge were glad to see their 
white mother back, and confessed that they did 
not seem able to do without her. They came to 
her like children with all their troubles and sorrows, 
and she listened to their stories and advised and 
comforted them. When they quarrelled they said, 
"Let us go to Ma," and she heard both sides and 
told them who was wrong and who was right, and 
they always went away content. 

She needed no longer to go to any of the villages 
round about when a chief died. She just sent a 
message that there must be no killing. There was 
a great uproar, but back always came the reply, 
"We have heard. Our mother has made up her 
mind. We will obey." They did not know that 
Ma all the time was in her room kneeling and pray- 
ing to God. 



THE WHITE QUEEN OF OKOYONG 85 

Some mourned over the old ways. "Ah, Ma," 
they sighed, "you have spoilt all our good fashions. 
We used to take our people with us when we went 
to the spirit land ; now we must go alone." 

But she had still to be on the alert, for many of 
the tribes at a distance from Ekenge had not yet 
given up their dark practices, and whenever they 
were bent on anything wicked they plunged deep 
into the heart of the forest to escape her eyes. 

One day she heard that a chief had died, and 
was guided to one of these hidden spots, where she 
found his free men giving the poison ordeal to a 
number of prisoners. They thought she would 
grow tired and go away if they simply sat and 
waited, but days and nights passed and she remained 
with them, sleeping on the ground beside a fire. 
Of the armed men lying around her she was not 
afraid, but only of the wild beasts that might come 
creeping up through the darkness and leap upon her. 
It was not she who became wearied and hungry, 
but the men themselves, and by and by the prisoners 
were set free. 

Erne Ete helped her most. It was she who told 
her when wrong-doing was being plotted. In the 
swift way that only natives know about, Erne Ete 
received news of it. Calling a trusty messenger 
she gave him a special kind of bottle. 

"Take that to Ma and ask her to fill it with 
ibok (medicine) — go quick!" 



86 THE WHITE QUEEN OF OKOYONG 

When the messenger arrived at the Mission House 
and Ma saw the bottle, she knew what it meant. 
It said to her, "Be ready!" and she would not 
undress until she heard the cry, "Run, Ma, run!" 
Once she lay down to rest in her clothes for a whole 
month before word came, and then she saved the 
life of a man. 

Sometimes a quarrel arose so quickly, and the 
call was so sudden, that she was not ready to go, 
and so she took a large sheet of paper and wrote 
anything on it that came to her mind, and after 
splashing some sealing-wax on it to make it 
look important, she sent it off by a swift runner. 
None of the fighting men could read, and by the 
time they had fingered it and talked over it Ma 
appeared. 

She liked best, however, to appeal to the good 
side of the chiefs, and get them to meet and reason 
and settle their affairs themselves. She called 
it the Jesus way; they called it the God-woman 
way; learned men would call it "the art of self- 
government." 

On page 89 a picture is given of one of these 
palavers. It was in a green glade in the forest four 
miles away. The chiefs of the two tribes, who sat 
opposite each other under coloured umbrellas, were 
dressed in gorgeous clothes and ringed round by 
armed men. Ma took her place between them and 
began to knit, for the natives love to talk, and she 



THE WHITE QUEEN OF OKOYONG 87 

knew the palaver would be a long one. Besides, she 
never felt quite so nervous when she knitted. First 
one spoke and then another, and the long hours 
passed, and Ma's back began to 1 ache, but still the 
talking went on, and the excitement rose to fever- 
heat. Darkness fell with a rush, and torches were 
lit and threw a weird light on the scene. 

"Enough!" cried Ma. "Come, let us end." 

An old chief went over all that had been said, 
and Ma gave the verdict, which pleased both 
sides. 

Then, as was the custom, a warrior from each 
party stood forward, blood was drawn from their 
hands and mixed with salt and pepper and corn; 
and half being given to one man and half to the 
other, they swallowed their portions at the same 
moment. This was the terrible -blood covenant 
sealing the peace between tribes, and none ever 
dared to break it. 

The sitting had lasted ten hours, and Ma was 
tired and hungry, but she walked back in the moon- 
light feeling very happy. 

So with a love that never wearied, with a patience 
that never gave in, with a humour that never 
failed, Ma gradually put down the evil order of 
things far and near. Year by year she grew in 
power, and from her house ruled over thousands of 
people. She was really the Queen of Okoyong. 
This was a marvellous thing, for at that time all 



88 THE WHITE QUEEN OF OKOYONG 

the country belonged to chiefs, and they could do 
as they liked. 

By and by a change came, and Britain took 
charge of the land and placed Consuls in the various 
districts. When Ma heard of it, she said: "You 
mustn't send one here. If you do there will be 
trouble, for my people are proud and fierce, and 
will fight." 

"Well, Miss Slessor," the Government replied, 
"you know them best. Why not do the work 
yourself?" 

And she did. She became what Dr. Livingstone 
had been. He always wore a blue cap with a gold 
band to show that he was a British Consul. Ma 
did not wear a hat, but she acted as a Consul, 
started a native court, and, like Deborah of old, 
judged the people and guided them about the new 
laws that were put into force. It was the first 
time in the history of our Empire that a woman 
had done such things. The result was all for good. 
Wild and lawless as the people were, they obeyed 
Ma, and so the rule of Britain over them began in 
peace. 

Ma always bore herself with queenly dignity, 
but she was really very humble. She only did the 
work because she thought it was what Jesus wanted 
her to do. "I am only a poor weak woman," she 
said, "and not a Queen at all." The officials of 
the Government knew better; when they went to 



THE WHITE QUEEN OF OKOYONG 89 

visit her they were amazed at the power she held 
over the people, and the deep respect and admira- 
tion they felt for her. 

"She is a miracle," they exclaimed, "this white 
Queen of Okoyong." 




ii/ll!li'Plirl|l'Vll>fa^ • 



iWMmm 



Some Okoyong Bairns. 



CHAPTER V 

Ma's great love for children; her rescue of outcast twins 
from death; the story of little Susie, the pet of the house- 
hold; and something about a new kind of birthday that 
came oftener than once a year. 

Ma's house at Ekenge was always like a big nursery. 

Mothers are much the same all over the world, 
but in Africa they are very ignorant and thought- 
less, and do not know how to care for their children, 
while they believe so much in the strange customs 
of the country that things are done to the little 
ones which seem to us hard-hearted and cruel. It 
was worse in Ma's days, when most of the people 
were still slaves. 

She was always sorriest for the babies, they 
were so helpless, and the only times she was really 
angry were when she saw them neglected or starved 
90 



THE WHITE QUEEN OF OKOYONG 91 

or made drunk. Then she was like a tigress, and 
the people fled before her. "Poor wee helpless 
things," she would say as she picked them up and 
thought of the way the white babies at home were 
cared for. She saw in the tiniest babe one for 
whom Jesus died; and she loved them all, and 
washed them and nursed them, and sang to them 
day and night. 

There was no cradle in the Mission House, but 
something better. Ma's bed was in the middle of 
the room, and around it were hammocks slung to 
the roof, from each of which a cord was hung. In 
these were placed the babies, and if any one became 
wakeful during the night and cried, she would pull 
the string and set its hammock swinging, and soon 
the little one was slumbering again. Sometimes 
she had to look after half a dozen or more at once, 
and two or three hammocks would be going at the 
same time. 

With many she had a hard struggle, but never 
grudged any trouble to make them well. She 
would come home late after a long day's tramp in 
the forest, tired and hungry and sleepy, and send 
Janie to bed and stay up herself and tend the sick 
and suffering ones. You can fancy her there alone 
in the mud-house in the forest in the quiet hours 
of the night, bending over a wasted form, watching 
the pain in its eyes with tears in her own, giving it 
medicine, soothing it, and seeking to make it comfy, 



92 THE WHITE QUEEN OF OKOYONG 

and beside her the pale dark shape of Death, with 
its grim smile, waiting for another victim. 

Ma sometimes won the child from the grave; 
sometimes she failed, and then she was very sad. 
But she could not help it. The people believed 
that sickness was caused by evil spirits, and most 
of the children that came to her were already dying 
and beyond her love and skill. When they closed 
their eyes she dressed them in a pinafore and put 
them in a box covered with white flowers, and 
buried them in her children's cemetery. 

Some women who called at Ma's yard were 
gossiping about the day's marketing, when one said 
it was funny that a baby should live after being 
five days and six nights in the bush. 

"What's that?" demanded Ma. "What do 
you mean?" 

"Nothing, Ma. The girl baby that was thrown 
away because the mother is dead is still alive, for 
we heard her crying as we came along this 
morning." 

Ma jumped up and went flying to the spot. She 
found the waif on some waste ground, terribly thin 
and eaten by insects and crying feebly. Taking 
her home Ma laid her in a big calabash and brooded 
over her with tender care, and by and by she re- 
covered, and became healthy and pretty. "The 
child of wonder," the people called her; but Ma 
named her Mary, after herself, and she became one 



THE WHITE QUEEN OF OKOYONG 93 

of her house-children, and stayed with her until 
she married. 

Twins gave Ma the sorest time. The people 
believed that all sorts of troubles would come to 
them if these were allowed to live. Ma laughed at 
them. 

"Twins are just like other children," she said; 
"and if only you let them grow up you will see for 
yourselves that there is no difference. Look at my 
bonnie Janie — she is a twin." 

But it was no use. So the only thing for her to 
do was to save the little mites before they could be 
murdered. It was Erne Ete who told her when 
twins came, and when she got the secret message 
she dropped the work she was doing and made 
swiftly for the spot. Sometimes they were already 
dead and thrown away in pots, and the mother 
driven into the backwoods. If she were in time she 
took the infants home and nursed them and guarded 
them from the father and relatives, who usually 
tried to steal and destroy them. 

One day she saved twins in her own village, and 
took them into the Mission House and put them in 
her bed. The people were alarmed, and said that 
dreadful things would happen. Chief Edem kept 
away. "I cannot go any more to my Mother's 
house," he groaned; "no, never any more." No 
one spoke to her. Mothers kept their children out 
of her way. She was sad and sorrowful, but she 



94 THE WHITE QUEEN OF OKOYONG 



would not give in, for she knew she was doing 
right. 

One of the twins died, but the other grew and 
waxed strong. The people liked their Ma so much 
that they, too, were unhappy at the cloud that had 
fallen between, and at last they began to make 
friends. 

"Ma, forgive us," they said humbly. "We have 
not been taught right. Let your 
heart warm to us again." 

So the shadow passed away. 
What cheered Ma most of all was 
that the father of the twin carried 
it home, and took back the 
mother, which showed that the 
old stupid notion was beginning 
to die. 

Another day there was a great 
uproar. Twins had come to a slave 
woman, called lye, about five 
miles off. Ma met her in the for- 
est carrying the infants in a box 
on her head, a howling mob of men 
and women hounding her on. They had destroyed 
all her property and torn up her clothes. Ma took 
the box, because no one would touch it, and helped 
the poor mother along to the Mission House. They 
could not go by the usual path, as the villagers 
would not have used it afterwards, so they had 




THE WHITE QUEEN OF OKOYONG 95 

to wait in the hot sun until another lane was 
cut. 

The boy twin was dead, but the girl was alive, 
and with care became plump and strong. She was 
a bonnie child with a fair skin and sweet ways, and 
she became the pet of the household. Ma called 
her Susie, after her elder sister, and loved her as 
much as if she had been her own. Even the mother, 
after she got well and went away, sometimes came 
back to see her, and was proud of her good looks. 

Fourteen months passed. One day Janie went 
upstairs to put a child to sleep, and asked Mana, 
one of the girls, to look after Susie, as she was full 
of play and mischief. Mana took her, and while 
getting the tea ready, placed a jug of boiling water 
on the floor for a moment. Susie, babylike, seized 
it and spilt the water over her bare body. She 
was dreadfully scalded. Ma was frantic, and for a 
fortnight scarcely let her out of her arms. Often 
the child smiled up in her face and held up her wee 
hand to be kissed. Ma at last carried her down 
to Creek Town, and woke up the doctor there at 
midnight in the hope that something more could 
be done. But the shock and wounds had been too 
severe, and when Ma got back the bright life of the 
queen of the household flickered and went out. 

Ma's grief was pitiful, and made even the people 
wonder. "See how she loved her," they said one 
to another. They came and mourned with her, 



96 THE WHITE QUEEN OF OKOYONG 

and stood by at the burial. Susie was robed in 
white, with her own string of beads round her neck, 
and a white flower in her hand. 

It was very lonesome for Ma afterwards. "My 
heart aches for my darling," she wrote. "Oh, the 
empty place and the silence and the vain longing 
for the sweet voice and the soft caress and the 
funny ways. Oh, Susie! Susie!" 

Her heart went out towards lye, the slave 
mother, and by and by she bought her for £10 and 
made her free, and she remained in the Mission 
House, a faithful worker, and a great help to Ma 
and those who came after her. 

All the stories of Ma's adventures with twins 
cannot be told, because she had to do with hundreds 
of them, but this is one which shows what she had 
often to go through. 

One afternoon when she was busy teaching in 
the school, a message was thrown suddenly at her 
from the door. 

"Ma! come, twins." 

"Where?" she asked. 

"Twelve miles away in the bush, and the mother 
is very ill." 

Ma went to the door and looked up. "There is 
going to be a storm," she said, "and I have a sickly 
baby to look after and night will soon be here, but — 
come along, Janie, we'll go." 

Darkness fell ere they reached the spot, and the 



THE WHITE QUEEN OF OKOYONG 97 

stars were hidden behind clouds, and they could 
hardly see a yard in front. 

They found the woman lying unconscious on the 
ground. One of the infants was dead, and Janie 
dug a hole and buried it. Ma ordered the husband 
and his slave to make a stretcher, which they did 
very unwillingly. Then she placed the woman on 
it and bade them carry her. Still more unwillingly, 
and grumbling all the time — for they dreaded to 
touch a twin-mother — they obeyed. Janie lifted 
the living twin, and all set forth by the light of a 
piece of fire-stick glowing at the end. This went 
out, and they stumbled along in the dense darkness. 
At last they stopped. They had lost themselves. 
The men laid down their burden and went off to 
grope for a trail, and Ma and Janie were alone in 
the eerie forest with the moaning form at their 
feet. 

"Oh, Ma, they may not come back," cried Janie. 

"Well, my lassie, we'll just bide where we are 
until morning." 

A shining ghostly thing leapt about in the dark- 
ness. Janie's heart went to her mouth. But it 
was only the men back with a torch made of palm 
tassel and oil which they had got from a hut. They 
went on again. 

When the Mission yard was reached the men 
were so tired that they fell down and went to sleep 
at once. Ma, too, was tired, but her work was not 



98 THE WHITE QUEEN OF OKOYONG 

done. She got a hammer and nails and some sheets 
of iron and knocked up a little lean-to, in which 
she put the woman and nursed her back to 
consciousness, and fed and comforted her. Then, 
utterly worn out, she just lay down where she 
was in her soiled and damp clothes, and fell sound 
asleep. 

The baby died next day, and the mother grew 
worse, and there was no hope. She was sore in 
spirit as well as in body, and sorrowed for her fate 
and the loss of her husband's love. Ma soothed her, 
and told her she was going to a better world, where 
no one would be angry with her for being a twin- 
mother. 

When she passed away the people would not 
touch or come near her, and so Ma did all that was 
needful herself, and placed her in a coffin, and then 
the husband and his slave bore her away and buried 
her in a lonely spot in the bush. 

Poor twin-mothers of Africa ! 

Though Ma did not save very many of the twin- 
children that passed through her hands, she did a 
great work by making the people realise how foolish 
and sinful a thing it was to be afraid of them and 
kill them. 

The household had grown and grown. We know 
about Janie and Mary, both trickified and bright 
little maidens. Then there was Mana, a faithful 
and affectionate lassie. One day, in her own 



THE WHITE QUEEN OF OKOYONG 99 

country, she had gone to the spring for water, and 
was seized by two men and brought to Okoyong 
and sold to Erne Ete, who gave her to Ma. Wee 
Annie was there also, very shy and timid, but a 
good nurse. Her parents had stolen and eaten a 
dog in the bush, and there was much trouble, 
and the mother died, and Annie would have been 
buried in the grave had not Ma taken her. Six 
other boys and girls with sad stories also lived in 
the Mission House, so that Ma often felt she was 
like the old woman who lived in a shoe, and who 
had so many children she didn't know what to do. 

It was not easy for her to keep in stock the food 
and medicine and clothes that were needed for the 
family, and sometimes she would run out of things. 
Once, when she was short of tins of milk, she 
strapped a baby on her back and tramped down 
the forest trail to Creek Town, got what she wanted, 
and patiently tramped back again. 

Another time she was watching some women who 
were imprisoned within a stockade and were going 
to be killed, and as she could not leave the place 
Janie handed her cups of tea through the fence. 
Suddenly a tornado came on and flooded the Mission 
House and soaked all the clothes. Ma herself was 
wet to the skin. To add to her trouble Janie came 
and said, "Ma, we have no milk, and the baby is 
crying for some." 

"Well, Janie, I'll just have to trot to Creek 



100 THE WHITE QUEEN OF OKOYONG 

Town for it. I'll get some dry clothes too. Put 
the baby in a basket." 

Slipping out in the darkness, and taking a woman 
to help to carry the baby, she set forth. They lost 
their way in the rain, and wandered hither and 
thither, and only reached the town at the dawning 
of the day. Ma roused one of the ladies of the 
Mission, obtained the milk and a change of clothes, 
and lay down for a little sleep. Hearing that she 
had come, King Eyo got his canoe ready, and sent 
her back by the river. Her absence from the 
stockade had not been noticed, and she was able 
later to settle the trouble without bloodshed. 

There were plenty of merry days in the home-life 
of Ekenge. Wherever girls are gathered together 
there is sure to be fun and laughter, and Ma had 
always the heart and will of a girl for jokes and 
mischief. She could not take her bairns into 
lighted streets or gay shops, or to places of amuse- 
ment, for there was none of these things in the bush, 
but sometimes she gave them a holiday, and a spe- 
cial tea, and gifts. Perhaps, however, the most de- 
lightful treat they had was when a box arrived 
from across the sea. 

All over Scotland loving hearts were thinking of 
Ma, and loving hands were working for her; and 
clothing, books, pictures, and knick-knacks were 
being collected and packed in boxes and sent out 
addressed to her in Okoyong. The Sunday School 



THE WHITE QUEEN OF OKOYONG 101 

children also had their thoughts on the Mission, and 

gave their pennies and halfpennies to it just as Ma 

herself had done when a little girl. About this time 

they gathered up enough money to build a steel 

steamer for use on the inland rivers and creeks, and 

it was now plying up and down, carrying mails and 

parcels and mis- .,„ ,. l t llt(ir fir -* — ..ff. ~^ ****-. 

sionaries. It was * ; '^y^**"' 

called the David _ _ 

Williamson, after _ 

. . Ihe David w illiamson. 

a minister of the 

Church who visited Calabar, but the natives named 

it the Smoking Canoe. 

You can imagine the excitement at the Mission 
House at Ekenge when a half -naked messenger, his 
dark body perspiring and glistening in the sun, ap- 
peared, and cried : 

"Ma, the Smoking Canoe is at the beach." 

"Ho-ho! gifts from Makara land," sang half a 
dozen throats. "Oh, Ma, when can we go ? Let us 
go now." 

Ma was as excited as the rest, so off went men, 
women, and children, streaming along the path to 
the river, where the David Williamson lay. 

As the boxes were usually too heavy to be carried, 
they were opened up on the beach and the contents 
made into parcels. These the natives balanced on 
their heads and went off, a long file of them, through 
the forest to Ekenge. 



102 THE WHITE QUEEN OF OKOYONG 

Sometimes it needed a second and a third journey 
before all the goods were together again. 

What a delight it was to Ma to open the pack- 
ages! What cries of rapture came from the chil- 
dren and the people looking on as they saw 
all the things that were to them so wonderful and 
beautiful. 

There were print garments by the dozens, woollen 
articles, caps, scarves, handkerchiefs, towels, ribbons 
and braids, thimbles, needles and pins, beads, but- 
tons, reels, spoons, knives, scrap-books, picture- 
books and cards, texts, pens, and a host of other 
things. It was almost with awe that the women 
touched the pretty baby-clothes, and the men clapped 
their hands as Ma held up a blue or scarlet 
gown or jacket. 

The dolls were looked upon as gods, and Ma 
would not give them away in case they were wor- 
shipped : she kept the prettily dressed ones to teach 
the women and girls how clothes were made and 
how they were worn. Some common things, which 
children at home would not value, they treasured. 
When Janie was handed a penwiper, "Oh, Ma," she 
said reproachfully, "wipe a dirty pen with that? No, 
no." And she put it up on the wall as an orna- 
ment! 

One old woman was given a copy of the picture 
"The Light of the World." "Oh," she cried in joy, 
"I shall never be lonely any more!" 



THE WHITE QUEEN OF OKOYONG 103 

If you had watched Ma closely when she was 
opening the packages, you would have seen that she 
was seeking for something with a quick and impa- 
tient eye. When at last she found what she wanted 
she gave a shout of triumph. Tins of home-made 
toffee and chocolate! They were always there, 
for every one knew she liked sweets. When at 
home she used to ask that these might be sent 
out, because the bush bairns were fond of them, but 
her friends just laughed in her face. "Miss 
Slessor," they would say, "you can eat as many 
as the bairns!" "Of course I can," she con- 
fessed. 

After the children had looked at all the gifts Ma 
would tell them where they came from, and would 
kneel down and thank Jesus for putting it into the 
hearts of the givers in Scotland to care for His 
forlorn black folk in Africa. 

Then Ma said, "Away to bed, bairns. But oh, 
hasn't it been grand ? It's just been like a birthday. 
Many happy returns!" 

Ma did not give all the things away. A brilliant 
gown might go to the chief as a gift — and he would 
sit proudly in Court with it and be admired and 
envied by all, — or a flannelette garment to some poor 
and aged woman to keep her warm during the 
shivery fog season ; but as a rule Ma liked the people 
to work for what they got, or to pay something 
for them. Thus she taught them to want clothes 



104 THE WHITE QUEEN OF OKOYONG 

and other things, and showed them how to get 
them, and in this way she was a real Empire builder. 
She used to say that there was no truer or more 
successful Empire maker than the missionary. 



>4» wu 



if t 



1 1 ( 




Opening one of the Boxes from Scotland. 




Ma's House at Akpap. 



CHAPTER VI 



How the Queen of Okoyong brought a high British official 
to talk to the people; how she left her nice home and went 
to live in a little shed; how she buried a chief at midnight; 
how she took four black girls to Scotland, and afterwards 
spent three very lonely years in the forest. 

The tribes in some of the out-of-the-way places 
were apt to forget that British law was now the 
law of the land, and go back to the old habits 
that were so deep-rooted in their nature. Ma often 
threatened that she would have to make them feel 
the power that stood behind her. Once, when the 
land of a widow was stolen, she asked the people 
whether they would have the case judged by God's 
law or by the Consul and a gun? After a while 
they said, "Iko Abasi — God's word." 

Ma opened her Bible and read : "Thou shalt not 
remove thy neighbour's landmark — that is God's 
law" ; and the land was returned to the woman. 
105 



106 THE WHITE QUEEN OF OKOYONG 

Then a chief died, and the blame was laid on one 
who was innocent. As a tornado was blowing, Ma 
could not visit the district, but she sent a message : 

"I'll come and see about it when the rain goes 
off." 

"Oh, yes," the people grumbled, "and when she 
comes she won't allow us to give the prisoners the 
bean. Let us take away the man and hide him." 

And they hurried him to a spot deep in the forest 
beyond her reach. 

Ma was vexed, and she was ill and tired. "I am 
not going to hunt for them this time," she said 
quietly. "They must learn to obey the law, and 
I will give them a lesson." 

So she wrote to the Government at Duke Town, 
asking them to send up some one to deal with the 
matter, and she took the letter herself to the beach, 
and dispatched it by a special canoe. 

Nothing can be hidden in negroland, and the news 
of what she had done soon reached the disobedient 
people. They came out of the forest in as great 
a hurry as they went in, and rushed to the Mission 
House. 

"Where is Ma? We want Ala." 

"Ma," said Janie crossly, "is away for the Con- 
sul. I hope he will bring a big gun with him. 
It's time. You are killing her with your silly 
ways." 

They went back sorrowful and alarmed, for a 



THE WHITE QUEEN OF OKOYONG 107 

big gun meant ruined homes and crops, and many 
arrests, and imprisonment down at the coast. 
When they saw Ma later, they begged her to ask 
the Consul to come with thoughts of peace and not 
of war. 

"Good," she replied, "and we shall have a proper 
big palaver about all your bad customs." 

When the Government official with his guard of 
soldiers arrived, he was amused to find the Queen 
of Okoyong sitting bareheaded on the roof of her 
house repairing a leak. She came down, and they 
had a palaver with the chiefs and people, who prom- 
ised not to do any more killing at funerals, and 
not to murder twins. 

Ma shrugged her shoulders. "They will promise 
anything," she told the officials. "I'll have to keep 
a close eye on them all the same." 

She did; and as they broke their word she 
brought up the Consul-General himself, Sir Claude 
Macdonald. He spoke kindly, but firmly, to the 
chiefs. 

"The laws are made for your good and safety and 
peace, and if you do not obey them you will be 
punished." 

They agreed to all he said. "Sir, when words 
are spoken once, we don't mind them; but when 
they are spoken twice, we obey." 

Ma also addressed them, telling of the blessings 
that would follow obedience, and of the quiet and 



108 THE WHITE QUEEN OF OKOYONG 

happy days they would enjoy long after she had 
gone. 

"Ma! Ma!" they cried in alarm, "you must not 
leave us! You are our Mother, and we are your 
children. God must not take you from us until 
we are able to walk by ourselves." 

After that things were better, though Ma's life 
did not grow less hard. Indeed, it was more stirring 
than ever. For various reasons her people were 
leaving their huts and building new ones at a place 
called Akpap, and Ma had to shut up the Mission 
and go with them. 

The only house she could find to live in was a 
little shed like a two-stalled stable, or one of the 
sheep-houses you see on the Scottish hills, with a 
mud floor and no windows. But she did not mind. 
She always thought of her Master, who had not a 
place to lay His head. So she put her boxes in one 
end, and in the other she lived and slept with the 
children. 

It was a grand play-ground for rats, lizards, ants, 
beetles, and other jumping and creeping things. At 
night the rats ran over Ma, and played hide-and- 
seek in the roof. Once, when Mr. Ovens arrived to 
do some carpentry work, he went to wash himself 
in the shed. In the dimness he felt what he thought 
was a sponge floating in the basin, and saying Ma 
was surely getting dainty, he used it for his face, 
only to find that it was a drowned rat ! 



THE WHITE QUEEN OF OKOYONG 109 

From this lowly hut, as from a palace, Ma con- 
tinued to rule Okoyong. 

Soon a strange disease seized her new lot of 
babies, and four died from it. Then smallpox, that 
dreadful scourge, swept through the land, and so 
many of her people were carried off that they lay un- 
buried in their huts. Ma was busy from dawn till 
dark, and often from dark again till dawn, vaccinat- 
ing the well ones, and nursing the ill and the dying. 

To her great grief her old friend, Chief Edem, 
caught the disease. In spite of his faults, which, 
after all, were the faults of his African upbringing, 
he had been very good to her, and she was grateful 
for all he had done. When she reached his hut at 
Ekenge there was no one with him, for as soon as 
a" man or a woman was stricken all others fled. She 
fought the disease through long weary hours, but 
was not able to save him, and he died in the mid- 
dle of the night. Tired as she was, and weak from 
lack of sleep, and alone, she felt that she could not 
let him lie like that. Going out she got some wood 
and made a coffin. Then in the darkness she dug 
a grave and buried him. There was no dancing and 
drinking and killing as this chief of Okoyong en- 
tered the spirit-land, only the faint noises of the 
forest, and the stillness of the starry sky, and a 
woman's mute prayer. When all was done she 
dragged her wearied body back in the cool of the 
dewy dawn to Akpap. 



110 THE WHITE QUEEN OF OKOYONG 

Was it a wonder that she began to lose her 
strength? Fevers laid her low, and illnesses, due 
to lack of good food, weakened her. She could 
scarcely crawl about. Yet she would not give in, 
and bravely drudged away at her work. At last 
the other missionaries said, "Ma, if you don't go 
home, you will die." She did not want to die: she 
wanted to live, and do much more for Jesus. "If," 
she said, "a holiday will help me, I will go. But 
what shall I do with my girls ? I cannot leave Janie, 
Mary, Alice, and Maggie here. If I go I must take 
them with me." 

Her friends were astonished. 

"How can you take four black girls to Scotland, 
and you so ill, Ma? It is impossible." 

"God can do impossible things," she replied in 
simple faith. "He will keep me and take care of 
them." 

"What about your clothes?" they asked. 

"We have none but the old things we have on: 
the ants have eaten up the rest. But God will pro- 
vide what we need." 

Sure enough, when they went to Duke Town a 
box arrived from a Glasgow church, and in it was 
all the nice warm clothing they required. 

It was the same everywhere. Kindness fell on 
her like sunshine. At Liverpool she handed her 
purse to a railway porter, and he bought the tickets 
and fixed them up in a carriage. And at Edinburgh 



THE WHITE QUEEN OF OKOYONG 111 



there was a faithful friend, Mrs. M'Crindle, on the 
platform, waiting to take the whole family to her 
home in Joppa. 

"Isn't God good to me?" she often said, with a 
happy smile. 

The four African foundlings were stared at by 
the rosy-cheeked boys and girls, who, however, 
were kind to them when they heard 
their sad stories. None except 
Janie knew a word of English, but 
they were all clever, and soon 
picked it up, and Mary even went 
to school in Portobello. 

After a happy time Ma took a 
house of her own at Seton Mill, 
where she got a glimpse of the sea, 
and here they all lived as in 
Africa, Janie being cook, and Ma 
going about often bare of foot and 
bare of head. But life in Scotland 
is not like what it is in the wilds 
of the Tropics, and Ma was sometimes found shiver- 
ing over the fire. So a fairy godmother, in the 
shape of Miss Adam, a lady of the Church who 
loved her, carried them off to a lovely village in the 
south called Bowden, where they stayed all July 
and August. 

A little girl named Happy Gray, who was stay- 
ing with Miss Adam, grew very friendly with the 




Alice, Mary, 
Maggie, Janie. 



112 THE WHITE QUEEN OF OKOYONG 

children, and together they wandered through the 
fields and woods, gathering flowers and raspber- 
ries, or climbed the Eildon Hills. They taught 
Happy how to burst "cape gooseberries" on the back 
of her hand, and showed her that when they gath- 
ered nettles they did not feel any sting. With her 
they drove to Stitchel Manse, where they ate apple 
tarts in the summer-house, and also went to St. 
Mary's Loch, the four black faces being a wonder to 
all the people in the countryside. 

After a time Ma left this haunt of peace to go 
and speak at meetings, for she was a famous person 
now, and every one was eager to see and hear the 
wonderful pioneer who lived alone amongst savages. 
She was very shy, and would not open her mouth 
if men were listening, and if any one began to praise 
her she would run away. It was always the work 
she spoke about, and the need for more women and 
girls to go out and help. 

Once in Edinburgh she was coaxed to address a 
meeting in the Synod Hall. "I dinna ken how I'm 
to do it," she said to a friend. "You'll pray for 
me? Where will you sit?" Her friend said, "In 
the gallery." "I'll look for you, and ken you are 
praying, and that will help." 

And, as usual, she spoke well. By and by many 
students of the Church College came creeping in 
under the gallery and listened, and she did not seem 
to mind, but appealed to them too, saying, "There 



THE WHITE QUEEN OF OKOYONG 113 

are many students who are ready, and making 
ready, to serve Jesus, and to tell about Him, and 
they will be running after fine churches and 
good manses, but there are multitudes who have 
never heard of Jesus out yonder. And for His sake 
will they not come out and work for Him 
there?" 

Sometimes she spoke of the good of prayer. "If 
you are ever inclined to pray for a missionary, do it 
at once, wherever you are," she said; "perhaps she 
may be in great peril at the moment. Once I had 
to deal with a crowd of warlike men in the com- 
pound, and I got strength to face them because I 
felt that some one was praying for me just then." 

At another meeting, when Mary with her bright 
happy face was with her, she told the young people 
how to be real ladies and gentlemen. "It is not," 
she said, "the wearing of fine clothes, or the posses- 
sion of great wealth, but having gentle manners and 
kind consideration for the feelings and happiness of 
others — not the giving of our money or the denying 
of ourselves of small luxuries to help the coming of 
the Kingdom, but the cheerful daily giving of our- 
selves for the good of others at home and abroad." 

She was most at home with children, and at her 
best at the tea-table, or when she curled herself up 
on the rug in front of the fire. Then came fearsome 
stories that made them tremble — true stories of 
what she had seen and done in dark Okoyong. 



114 THE WHITE QUEEN OF OKOYONG 

"Oh, mother," the children would say when being 
tucked in bed, "how can Miss Slessor live alone 
like that with wild men and wild beasts and every- 
thing?" 

"Ah," was the soft reply, "she does it because 
she loves Jesus, and wants to help Him. I wonder, 
now, if you could love Him as much as that?" 

And the little minds in the little heads that were 
snuggling down amongst the comfy pillows also 
wondered. 

Ma was a puzzle to the grown-ups, too, for they 
saw that she was not only very shy but very timid. 
Some small girls had more courage than she. She 
would not cross a field that had a cow in it: she 
was nervous in the streets, and usually got some 
one to take her across from side to side. She had 
not even the nerve to put up her hand to stop a 
car: she would take one only if it were standing. 
She shook when in a boat or sitting behind a fast 
horse. 

Why was she afraid in this way? Just because 
these things happened to herself. In big things, 
where the cause of Jesus was in danger, or others 
were to be protected and saved from hurt, she 
forgot her own feelings, and thought only what was 
to be done, and was braver and stronger even than 
men. Her heart was so loving that she was willing 
to die in the service of Jesus. You remember what 
He said, "Greater love hath no man than this, that 



THE WHITE QUEEN OF OKOYONG 115 

a man lay down his life for his friends." That 
was her kind of love — the kind which Jesus Him- 
self had for the world, which made Him do so 
much for us, and which led Him at last to His awful 
agony on the Cross. 

She should have stayed a year, but when the 
winter came on with grey, cold, weeping skies, she 
and the bairns missed the sunshine and heat. Ah! 
and she was always thinking of the work to be done 
in Africa. To her friends who pressed her to stay, 
she said, "If ye dinna send me back, I'll swim back. 
Do you no ken that away out there they're dying 
without Jesus?" So they set sail and spent Christ- 
mas Day at sea. 

What a reception they got at Akpap! "Every- 
thing will be right now," the people said, "Ma is 
back." And once more she became the sovereign 
lady of Okoyong. 

The next three years were the loneliest and worst 
she ever spent in the forest. She was never once 
down in Calabar, few white persons came to see her, 
and she had a big battle to fight with ill-health. 
There was not a day that she did not suffer weakness 
and pain : for whole nights she never slept, for 
months she was low with fever, and at times she 
believed she was going to die. Think what it must 
have been for her to lie there alone, tended only 
by her black girls. But she was never in the dumps. 
Somehow her spirit always managed to conquer 



116 THE WHITE QUEEN OF OKOYONG 

her body, and she would struggle up and with a 
droll smile and a stout heart go on with her work. 
Nobody knew all she did in those years, for the 
story is hidden behind a veil of silence; only now 
and again we get a glimpse of her, lit up for a mo- 
ment, as by a flash of lightning, and she is always 
bravely fighting for Jesus and the right, now hurry- 
ing to rescue twins and orphans, now sallying out 







Ma mending the Roof on Sunday. 

to some village to put down the drinking, now trav- 
elling far to save life. 

When she was not doing these things she was 
busy about her own doors. She had now a new 
house with a room underneath, and here she taught 
the day-school and held services and Bible classes 
and preached on Sundays. And there were always 
the Court and the palavers and the dispensary and 
the building and repairing and cooking and dig- 
ging and a hundred and one other duties. So ab- 
sorbed, indeed, did she get in what she was doing 



THE WHITE QUEEN OF OKOYONG 117 

that often, as in the early days at home, she lost 
count of time. Sometimes she did not know what 
day of the week it was. Sundays had a habit of 
getting mixed up with other days. Once she was 
found holding her services on a Monday thinking 
it was Sunday, and again on a Sunday she was dis- 
covered on the roof hammering away in the belief 
that it was Monday. 

She ruled with a firm but kindly hand. The hard 
and terrible times she had come through had 
changed her a little. She had still the old sweet- 
ness, but she could be stern, and even rough, with 
the people, and she often spoke to them in a 
way which a white man would not have dared to 
do. Those who were brought up to Court for harm- 
ing women she punished severely. If any chief 
challenged what she said, she would take off the 
slipper she had put on as part of her simple 
Court dress, and slap him over the bare shoulder 
with it. 

Yet she was never afraid. She went about alone 
by day and night, and never carried a weapon. She 
had no locks on her doors. Once a murderer was 
caught and nearly torn to pieces by the mob be- 
fore he was chained and brought to Ma to be judged. 
She heard the evidence, and ordered him to be sent 
down to Duke Town for trial. Then she took 
off his irons, and sent away the guard, and bade 
him come into the house, where she sat down and 



118 THE WHITE QUEEN OF OKOYONG 

talked to him earnestly for a long time. He was a 
big man, violent and sullen, and he could easily have 
knocked her down and escaped into the woods. But 
he listened quietly, and allowed her to lead him to 
the room below, where she fastened him in for the 
night. 

Only once in all the years she spent in Okoyong 
was she struck, and that was by accident. There 
was a quarrel and a fight, and she went into the 
press of excited men to stop them. One of the sticks 
hit her. A cry of horror arose: 

"Ma is hurt! Our Ma is hurt!" 

Both sides at once fell on the wretched man who 
held the stick, and began to beat him to death. 

"Stop, stop!" Ma cried. "He did not mean to 
do it." 

And it was only by using all her strength and 
forcing them back that she saved his life. 

And so the years wore on, and the new century 
came. "A new century," said Ma, sitting dreaming 
in her lonely little house. "What will it hold ? It 
will at least hold His loving kindness and care all 
the way through, and that is enough." 

For fifteen long patient years Ma gave her life 
to Okoyong, and she had her reward, for it became 
a land of peace and order and good will, the bad 
old customs died away, and the people were slowly 
but surely becoming the disciples of Jesus. 

It was a wonderful thing for a white woman to 



THE WHITE QUEEN OF OKOYONG 119 

have done alone, but Ma would not take any credit 
for it; she said it was no power of her own that 
had won her such a place in the heart of the wild 
people: it was the power of Jesus working in her 
and through her. He was the King of Okoyong, 
and she was only His humble servant-maid. 




Janie. 




The Lily-covered Enyong Creek. 



CHAPTER VII 

Tells of a country of mystery and a clever tribe who were 
slave-hunters and cannibals, and how they were fought 
and defeated by Government soldiers; how Ma went 
amongst them, sailing through fairyland, and how she be- 
gan to bring them to the feet of Jesus. 



On some quiet summer day you may have been 
wandering through a country lane when you sud- 
denly felt a whiff of perfume, fresh and sweet, and 
wondered where it could have come from. You 
looked about, but there was nothing save a tangle 
of green wood. You searched the hedges, and went 
down to the brown stream below the bridge and 
along its banks. The fragrance was still scent- 
ing the air, now strong, now faint, but you could 
not find its source. Then suddenly you came upon 
it — a sweetbriar bush, hidden away in a lonely and 
lowly spot. 

120 



THE WHITE QUEEN OF OKOYONG 121 

Ma Slessor was like this modest briar bush. The 
influence of her goodness spread far and near, and 
the fame of her doings reached peoples who lived 
hundreds of miles away. They said to one another, 
"Let us go and see this wonderful White Mother" ; 
and they left their villages and travelled through 
forests and across wide rivers and creeks, risking 
capture and death at the hands of hostile tribes, to 
seek her advice and help. Some of these visitors 
spoke languages Ma did not understand, and they 
had to talk to one another in signs. Chiefs in dis- 
tricts she had never heard of sent her messages : 
"Oh, Great White Mother, come and dwell with us, 
and we will be God-men." Escaped slaves from can- 
nibal regions, who had been doomed to be eaten, 
fled to her for refuge. All received from her a 
kind welcome and food, and, best of all, had a 
talk about the Divine Chief who was to be the real 
Saviour of Africa. 

There were other visitors to Okoyong she liked 
less, slave-dealers from beyond the Cross River, 
who brought women and girls to sell. A slow fire 
of rage had long been burning in Ma's heart against 
this cruel system, and sometimes it burst into fierce 
flame. She would hear a sound of bitter sobbing, 
and go out to see a string of naked little girls being 
driven forwards by a man carrying brass rods on 
his head — the money which the natives use. She 
would be so angry that she would shake her fist at 



122 THE WHITE QUEEN OF OKOYONG 



the trader and storm at him, but he would 
only grin and ask her which girl she wanted, and 
would then describe their good points just as 
if they had been so many fowls or goats. 
Sometimes there would be sick ones, or ones suffer- 
ing from ill-treatment, and these the dealers would 
leave, and she would nurse them back to health, 

though she was al- 
ways very unwilling 
to let them go again 
into the awful whirl- 
pool of slave-life. 

She knew many of 
the dealers quite well, 
and often had long 
talks with them about 
the mysterious coun- 
try from which they 
came. W h i t e m e n 
had not yet entered 
into the heart of it, but Ma learnt enough to 
be sure that it was a far more wicked place even 
than Okoyong had been. It was called Ibo- 
land, and one of the tribes, the Aros, were so cun- 
ning and clever that they had become a power over 
a vast region. It was they who were the slave- 
stealers, seeking their victims everywhere, and sell- 
ing them in markets to the traders. One of their 
best hunting-grounds was Ibibio, the country to the 




THE WHITE QUEEN OF OKOYONG 123 



south, where the natives were poor and naked 
and miserable, and lived in little settlements deep 
in the forest, because of their fear of the slave 
raiders. 

The Aros believed that they had a wonderful 
chuku or juju near a 
the god of the Aros — 
chuku — which means 
the god of the Aros — 
in a rocky gorge down 
which a stream flowed. 
At one spot there was 
a pool overhung by 
trees and creepers. 
Here, amongst the 
White lilies, swam ugly 
cat-fish, with fierce- 
looking eyes, that were 
held to be sacred, and 
which it was death 
to catch. On a little 
island was a hut, 
guarded by priests, in which the juju was sup- 
posed to live. The people thought it could aid them 
in time of trouble, and came in great numbers to 
the shrine to ask advice and get their quarrels 
made up. Though the priests helped many in this 
way, they were cunning and greedy, and often acted 
very cruelly. They took the food and money which 




124 THE WHITE QUEEN OF OKOYONG 

the visitors brought, and then said the juju 
wanted a living offering. So some poor man or 
woman was taken into the glen blindfolded, and 
the friends of the victim knew that the sacrifice was 
made by seeing the blood flowing past lower 
down. 

Others who entered never came out again. The 
priests said they had been seized by the juju, and 
the blood-red river seemed to show this, but a dye 
had been thrown in to colour the water. These 
persons were taken far away in secret, and sold into 
slavery. Any that were not of much value were 
slain and eaten in the cannibal feasts. 

Now that Ma's dream of conquering Okoyong 
had come true, she was dreaming other dreams, and 
the most fascinating of these was to go to this 
terrible cannibal country and put down the evil do- 
ings of the natives. She told the slave-dealers 
about it. 

"All right, Ma," they said, for they liked her, 
and admired her courage. "We, who know you, 
will be glad to welcome you; but we are not sure 
about the priests — they may kill you." 

"I will risk that," she said ; "as soon as I can get 
away from here you will see me." 

In order to find out more about the tribes, she 
sometimes went far up the Cross River in a canoe, 
stopping wherever she could get shelter. On one 
of her journeys, when she had some of the house- 



THE WHITE QUEEN OF OKOYONG 125 

children with her, the canoe was attacked by a huge 
hippopotamus. It rushed at the canoe, and tried 
to overthrow it. The men thrust their paddles down 
its throat and beat it, but it kept savagely nosing 
and gripping the frail vessel. Great was the ex- 
citement. Its jaws were snapping, the water was 
in a whirl of foam, the men were shouting and lay- 
ing about them with their paddles, the girls were 
screaming, Ma was sometimes praying and some- 
times giving orders. At last the canoe was swung 
clear, and paddled swiftly away. 

The story of this adventure is still told in Cala- 
bar, and if you ask Dan, one of Ma's children, about 
it, he will say, "Once, when Ma was travelling in a 
canoe, she was attacked by hippopotamuses, but 
when they looked inside the canoe and saw her, 
they all ran away!" 

What Ma saw and heard made her all a-quiver 
to go into these strange lands, but she would not 
leave the Okoyong people until some one came to 
take her place. The Mission had no other lady to 
send, and so she could only watch and pray and 
wait. 

Matters became worse. The Aros hated the white 
rule, and would not submit to it. They tried 
to prevent the Government opening up their coun- 
try to order and justice and peace, and would not 
allow the officials to enter it ; they blocked the river 
so that no white vessel, or native one either, 



126 THE WHITE QUEEN OF OKOYONG 

could pass; they went on with their slave-hunting 
and cannibalism. At last the Government lost pa- 
tience. "We must teach them a lesson," they said. 
So a warning went to all the missionaries along the 
banks of the river to come down to Calabar 
at once. Ma Slessor did not like the order. "Every- 
thing is peaceful in Okoyong," she said. "My peo- 
ple won't fight." The Government said they knew 
that, but her life was too precious to risk, and 
they sent a special steamer for her and the chil- 
dren. 

When she came she found several companies of 
soldiers, with many quick-firing guns, already mov- 
ing up the river. They landed in the Aro country, 
and marched through swamps and attacked the hosts 
of natives who had gathered to bar their way, and 
defeated them. Still, the bushmen would not give 
in, and the soldiers had many a weary time 
in the trackless forests. At Arochuku they went 
down the gorge to the juju house, at the door of 
which they found a white goat starving to death. 
Many human skulls and cooking-pots lying about 
told a gruesome tale. The place continued to be 
the scene of wicked ceremonies, and was at last 
blown up with dynamite. 

Ma was sorry she had not gone to Iboland before 
the soldiers, because she felt that if she had done 
so she might have saved all the fighting and blood- 
shed. Now that a way had been blazed into the 



THE WHITE QUEEN OF OKOYONG 127 



country, she was more than ever eager and impa- 
tient to go. 

"The Gospel should have been the first to enter," 
she said; "but since the sword and gun are before 
us, we must follow at once." 

So while carrying on the work at Akpap, she 
began to explore and look out for some place that 
would do for an outpost. One day she left Akpap, 
taking with her the 
slave-girl Mana, who 
now knew English 
and her Bible well, 
and a bright boy 
called Esien, and 
tramped to the Cross 
River, where she 
boarded a canoe and 
paddled slowly up- 
stream. By and by 
she came to another smaller river on the west, which 
seemed to run far into the interior between Ibo 
and Ibibio, and there she landed on a beach at 
the foot of a hill. This was Itu, a famous place, for 
it was here that one of the greatest slave-markets 
in West Africa used to be held, and it was down 
this side river, the Enyong Creek, that the slaves 
were brought in canoes, to be sold and sent over 
the country, or shipped abroad to the West Indies 
or America. 





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128 THE WHITE QUEEN OF OKOYONG 

"A good place to begin," Ma said; and she 
landed and climbed up the steep bank to the top, 
where she had a beautiful view over the shining 
river and the green land. "Oh, yes," she repeated, 
"a bonnie place to begin." 

Once more she lived the gipsy life. She opened 
a school, made Mana and Esien the teachers, and 
started to build a church. The people, who had 
so long trembled in the shadow of slavery, were 
so pleased that they did all they could to help her, 
and the children of the village tumbled over one 
another in their eagerness to "learn book." 

When she left for Akpap again the chiefs gave 
her the gift of a black goat, and she tied a piece of 
string to it and led it to the beach, where the Mis- 
sion boat picked her up and took her down to the 
landing-place for Okoyong. She was bareheaded 
and barefooted, but in high spirits at the success 
of her trip, and she went away gaily into the forest, 
leading her goat and singing : 

Mary had a little lamb, 

Its fleece was white as snow! 

Mana did a wonderful work at Itu: she taught 
the women and girls to read and sew, held prayers 
in the chief's yard every night, and preached on 
Sunday ; and just because she loved Jesus, and tried 
to be like Ma, she soon had hundreds falling under 
the spell of the new way of life. This humble 



THE WHITE QUEEN OF OKOYONG 129 

slave-girl did not fall away like others. She and 
Esien remained always true disciples of their Lord. 

"If only some one would come and help me at 
Akpap," Ma prayed, and her wish was answered, 
for another brave woman, Miss Wright, one of the 
Mission agents in Calabar, offered to go up and 
stay with her, and after that everything was easy, 
for Ma Slessor loved Ma Wright, and Ma Wright 
loved Ma Slessor, and both loved the bairns, and 
the bairns loved both, so that it was a happy com- 
pany which lived in this African forest clearing. 

By this time Ma's own special family was com- 
plete, and no more members were added, so we 
can look in upon them and see who they were and 
what they did. 

First, of course, came Janie, who was now a big 
lassie, very kind, and full of sympathy for every- 
body. She spoke English fluently, and, like Ma, 
was a constant reader of the Bible ; few white boys 
or girls, indeed, know it so thoroughly as she did. 
She was Ma's right hand, and could do almost any- 
thing, indoor or outdoor, clean, cook, carry a load, 
build a house, or work in the fields. But she liked 
working outside best, and, although a twin, had 
many friends amongst the people. 

Mary was another good girl, though not so fond 
of hard work as Janie. She waited upon Ma, and 
did all her little ploys. Alice was a quiet, solid, 
plodding little soul, not as bright as Janie or Mary, 



130 THE WHITE QUEEN OF OKOYONG 

but faithful in whatever duty she was given to do, 
and always willing and obedient. Annie had no 
head at all for her lessons, but was very diligent, 
and always smiling. Maggie the restless — Ma's 
name for her was Flibberty-gibbet — was the one 
who was fond of the babies, always busying herself 
about them, except when she was in the kitchen 
cooking a tit-bit for her own little mouth. The 
baby of the family was Whitie, a twin with dancing 
eyes, and giving promise of being clever by and by. 

Then there were the two boys, Dan, a lively lit- 
tle fellow, not clever, but good, who had been 
brought up by Janie and was a favourite with Ma, 
and, as is often the case with a boy amongst a lot 
of sisters, was a little spoiled ; and toddling Asoquo, 
who was so very fond of food that he sometimes 
stole the cat's milk! 

In the house at this time was another boy named 
Impie. Poor Impie! He was deformed and could 
not use his legs, and the natives had some queer 
notion about it. He lay all day, so patient, with 
a smile for everybody; and when, in the evening, 
Ma Wright took him on her knee until bedtime, 
his face was a picture of perfect content. He died 
soon afterwards. 

All the children were astir before six in the 
morning. Annie made up the wood fire and boiled 
water in the kettle for Ma's tea, and Janie or Mary 
prepared it and brought it in. Then they swept up 



THE WHITE QUEEN OF OKOYONG 131 

the yard, and went into the bush to gather fire- 
wood or look for herbs to make efere or native soup. 
At prayers the children squatted on the verandah. 
They sang a hymn in English, and the bigger ones 
read verse about, Ma explaining as they went along 
— for she never hurried through worship no 
matter how busy she might be. Then she prayed 
in Efik, and all repeated the Lord's Prayer in Eng- 
lish. 

Prayers were not always at the same time, and 
sometimes when everybody was out of doors sweep- 
ing up or cutting down bush, Ma summoned them 
to the shade of a palm or cotton or orange tree, 
and had them there just to teach them that people 
could worship God anywhere — at their work, as 
well as in church. 

"Boys and girls," she used to tell her young 
friends in Scotland, "should pray at their play or 
lessons as well as when reading or saying their 
prayers night and morning. Make a habit of it 
by looking up and saying a word or two in thought 
at any time. God is interested in our play and 
work and everything." 

Then came lessons for a couple of hours, Ma 
doctoring patients or holding palavers the while. 
After breakfast the big lads or children from the 
village came, and school was held out in the open 
air under the verandah. This went on until six 
o'clock, when the evening- meal was taken. 



132 THE WHITE QUEEN OF OKOYONG 

Prayers were again held on the verandah, and 
as the refugees in the yard and many of the neigh- 
bours came and sat below, the native tongue only 
was used. There was a hymn, and Ma would tell 
a simple gospel story, and all would say: "This 
night I lay me down to sleep." By that time one 
or two of the little ones were already in slumber- 
land, and were carried off to bed. 

On Sunday nights the hymns that children all 
over the world know were sung, sometimes with 
choruses which Ma made up herself; and instead 
of reading, the girls told what they remembered 
of the sermon. Janie was best at this. Mary and 
Alice could, at least, say the text, and when it came 
to Annie's turn she always said: "Nkokop nte 
Jesus edi eyen Abasi" — "I heard that Jesus is the 
Son of God." 

Market-day was an exciting time for the children. 
The people came crowding in from the villages 
with all sorts of food and things to sell, such as yams 
— these are something like large potatoes, — shrimps 
from the river, oil from the palm-nut, sugar-cane, 
ground nuts, Indian corn, and fowls. Most of 
them came to see Ma, many simply to "kom" her, 
that is, to give her compliments, others to get ad- 
vice or medicine. They brought little gifts for 
the children, sugar-cane, oranges and bananas and 
other fruit, or seed-plants, which they put in their 
own plots of ground, for they all liked to grow things. 



THE WHITE QUEEN OF OKOYONG 133 

It was Ma who taught them to love flowers. 
She knew a great deal about the wild plants of 
the forest. One day, when walking with a visitor 
along the path, he complained of toothache, and 
by and by she picked a flower and told him to chew 
it. He did so, and the pain vanished. He plucked 
another which he thought was the same, and she 
said, "If you eat that you will be dead in five 
minutes." 

Ma taught them many other things — indeed all 
they knew — and needed to be very patient, for 
think of the ages of darkness and ignorance that 
lay behind them! She tried, above all, to get 
them to hate lying, which is so common in 
Africa. Her one great and constant bit of 
advice and warning to them was — "Speak the 
truth." 

These pleasant days in the Mission House were 
soon to end. Ma was now ready to go forward, 
and only waited to be sure that God was leading 
her, for she never wanted to go any way but His. 
One day she trudged the six miles to the Cross 
River in the hope of catching the Government 
launch for Itu. It passed when she was resting in 
a hut, and she had to trudge back the weary miles 
to Akpap again. 

"Oh, Ma," said Miss Wright, "I am sorry you 
missed it." 

Ma was tired, but only smiled and said, "Never 



T34 THE WHITE QUEEN OF OKOYONG 

mind, lassie, God did not mean me to go to-day, 
and He knows best." 

A week later the launch saw her and picked 
her up, and on board she found the Military 
Commander. 

"Ma," he said, "I'm going as far as Arochuku. 
Why not come up with me?" 

"Oh," she thought, "is this what God meant 
when He turned me back last week?" And al- 
though she meant only to go to Itu and had no 
change of clothing or food, she said, "Yes, I 
will go." 

And so she passed Itu and sailed up the Enyong 
Creek, one of the loveliest little waterways in the 
world. She had seen many beautiful bits of tropical 
scenery, but never one so beautiful as this. At first 
it is broad and open, and here and there she saw 
a tiny canoe with a man fishing for shrimps, and 
she was told that electric fish, which gave one a 
shock, lived in the water. Then it ran through the 
forest, where it was as still as a lake in the heart 
of the hills, and dark and green because the branches 
drooped over it. Through the little arches of foli- 
age she got glimpses of what looked like fairyland 
beyond. The surface was covered with lilies of daz- 
zling whiteness. Scarcely a sound broke the deep 
and fragrant silence. Sometimes a kingfisher 
would rise and fly lazily away, sometimes a troop 
of monkeys would look down from the branches 



THE WHITE QUEEN OF OKOYONG 135 

overhead and chatter, sometimes grey parrots with 
red tails would scream angrily for a moment at 
being disturbed. 

But as Ma lay and enjoyed all the peace and 
the beauty, she seemed to see other things — she 
saw canoe-loads of sad-eyed slaves passing down, 
week after week, year after year, century after 
century — what terrible misery and despair that 
lovely creek must have known ! 

And when she landed and walked through the 
forest trails, the same thought was in her mind — 
how these paths had been beaten hard by endless 
files of hopeless slaves — men, women, and little 
children. 

"At last," she said thankfully, "the cruel reign 
of heathendom is over, and peace and kind- 
ness and happiness are now coming to this dark 
land!" 

She found the villages and towns almost touch- 
ing one another, and full of people. 

"Welcome, Ma! we looked for your coming," 
shouted her old friends, the slave-traders, although 
they knew well that she would try and stop their 
evil doings. 

She found that some native traders from the coast 
had been telling the people about Jesus, and she 
called the chiefs and held a palaver and set about 
starting a school and building a church. It was 
curious to see not only children but grave men and 



136 THE WHITE QUEEN OF OKOYONG 

women squatting on the ground learning ABC! 
And some of the men were old slave-hunters. 

"Come back soon, Ma! You are the only one 
who cares for us," they cried as she left. 

One day, when coming down the Creek, she was 
idly watching a snake trying to swim across the 
quiet water, when bump, bump, her canoe was run 
into and nearly overturned by another, which shot 
out from the side. 

"Sorry, Ma," said the man in it. "I have been 
waiting for you many days. My master at Akani 
Obi wants to speak with you." 

The canoe was turned, and followed by the other 
into a creek that was fairylike in its tender beauty, 
and came to a beach where stood a nice-looking, 
well-dressed native and his wife. They took her 
into their home, which was furnished like a Euro- 
pean one. 

"I am Onoyom," said the man. "When I was 
a little slave-boy, one of your white missionaries 
explored as far as this. All the people fled. I was 
not afraid, and I took him to the chief. I was 
punished afterwards. When I grew up I went to 
the cannibal feasts at Arochuku. My master died, 
and ten little girls were killed and placed in his 
grave. I became steward of the House, and ruled 
as chief. My house was burned down, and my 
child died. I thought some enemy had done it, 
and I wanted to murder people. I met a man 



THE WHITE QUEEN OF OKOYONG 137 

who had been a teacher, and he said, 'Perhaps God 
is angry with you.' I said, 'I want to find this 
God.' He said, 'Go to the White Ma and she will 
help you.' I took a canoe to find you. I 
missed you. I left a man to wait, and he 
has brought you. Now, will you tell me what 
to do?" 

As she listened Ma's eyes grew bright with joy. 
She talked with him and his household, telling 
them of Jesus and His Gospel, and praying with 
them, and promised to come and begin a school 
and church. Then they made her a cup of tea, and 
went with her to the beach. 

As her canoe skimmed over the quiet water again, 
darkness fell, and a rain-storm came on and Ma 
was drenched, but she did not care; she sang aloud 
in her blitheness of heart, for after ages of dark- 
ness and wickedness the sunlight of God was be- 
ginning to shine in the Creek. 

After that what a life she led! She was always 
moving up and down the Creek, visiting strange 
places and camping anywhere. Sometimes she had 
to sleep in the open air, or in huts on the floor, or 
in the canoe; sometimes she was caught in tor- 
nadoes and soaked to the skin; sometimes she was 
not able to wash for many days; sometimes she 
ran out of stores and lived on native plant-food and 
tea made in old milk tins. She was often ill, full 
of aches and pains and burning with fever; but 



138 THE WHITE QUEEN OF OKOYONG 

even when she was suffering she never lost her happy 
spirit and her bright laugh. She was like a white 
spirit fluttering hither and thither, a symbol of the 
new life that was stirring in the land. The people 
were rising out of the sleep of centuries, every- 
where they were eager to learn, everywhere they 
cried for teachers and missionaries. 

"Oh," cried Ma, "if only I could do more, if 
only I were young again! If only the Church at 
home would send out scores of men and women. 
If . . ." 

She did too much, and her frail weak body could 
not stand it. Sleep forsook her, and that meant 
loss of nerve. When she thought of the im- 
mense work opening up before her, with only her- 
self to do it, she quailed and shrank from 
the task. In the night she rose and went wander- 
ing over the house, and looked down upon 
the children slumbering in perfect trust and 
peace. 

"Surely, surely," she said, "God who takes care 
of the little ones will take care of me." 

It was time for her holiday to Scotland, but she 
could not leave because she was very near death. 
A long rest revived her, and she rose — to go home ? 
No. The flame that burned in that worn little body 
leapt up and glowed best in the African forest. 
Instead of going to Scotland she made up her mind 
to spend six months wandering about the Creek in 



THE WHITE QUEEN OF OKOYONG 139 

her own canoe, visiting the people and opening new- 
Mission stations. 

"Oh, Ma !" said the other missionaries, "are you 
wise to do this after all you have gone through? 
You have worked so hard, and you need a holiday. 
Go home and rest, and then you will be better able 
to do what you wish." 

But no, she would carry out her plan; and so 
giving up the Court work to be freer to serve her 
own Master, she set out joyfully on her quest for 
new toils and triumphs. 




"Mary had a Little Lamb! 




&m 



Ma's House at Use. 



CHAPTER VIII 

Ma learns to ride a bicycle and goes pioneering; the Gov- 
ernment makes her a Judge again and she rules the peo- 
ple; stories of the Court, and of her last visit to Scotland 
with a black boy as maid-of-all-work; and something about 
a beautiful dream which she dreamed when she returned, 
and a cow and a yellow cat. 

Ma settled at Itu in a little mud hut, with a table 
and chair and a few pots and pans. The girls 
worked and slept anywhere; the babies, new and 
old, crawled all over the place like caterpillars, 
and at night lay on bits of newspaper on the floor. 
Ma helped in the building of the Mission House 
and Church, and when they were finished sent for 
some one to fix up doors and windows. Mr. Chap- 
man, from the Institution, arrived, and was 
treated as the guest of the people, so that when 
he made his bed in the middle of the church the 
young men of the village came, as was their custom, 
and slept on the floor round him as a guard of hon- 
our, and got water and food for him in the 
morning. 

140 



THE WHITE QUEEN OF OKOYONG 141 

Ma was as busy as a bee. She carried on a day- 
school, preached to four hundred people, taught a 
Bible Class and a Sunday School, received visitors 
from dawn till dusk, and explored the forest and 
made friends with the shy natives. Every now 
and then she canoed up the Creek as far as Aro- 
chuku, and stayed in the villages along the banks. 
Mud-and-thatch churches began to spring up. 
Onoyom, however, said he was not going to be sat- 
isfied with anything less than the very best House of 
God, and taking three hundred pounds that he had 
saved up, he spent it all on a fine building. When 
the time came to make the pulpit and seats, he said : 
"We want wood, cut down the juju tree." Now 
the juju tree is where the god of a village is sup- 
posed to live, and his men were horror-struck. 

"The juju will be angry; he will not let us, he 
will kill us." 

"Ma's God is stronger than our juju," was his 
reply. "Cut it down." 

They went out and began the work, but the trunk 
was thick, and after a time they stopped. 

"See, we cannot cut it." 

The heathen crowd, standing in a ring watching 
them, were overjoyed. "Ah, ha!" they cried, "our 
juju is stronger than Ma's God." 

Next morning Onoyom took out a party of men 
who wanted to be disciples of the new faith, and 
before beginning to hack at the tree they knelt 



142 THE WHITE QUEEN OF OKOYONG 



down and prayed that the White Mother's God 
would prove more powerful than the juju. Then, 
rising, they attacked it with lusty strokes, and soon 
it tottered and fell with a mighty crash. It was 
the turn of Onoyom to rejoice. 

When the Creek 
churches were ready, 
missionaries 
travelled u p from 
Calabar to open 
them, and were as- 
tonished to see the 
happy, well-clothed 
people, and the big 
sums of money they 
brought. Atone 
place there was a 
huge pile of brass 
rods, the value of 
which was £20. You 
must remember that 
these were still 
heathen people, but 
they were longing to love and serve the true God. So 
eager, indeed, were they that they worried Ma until 
she was almost distracted. Messages came every 
day like this: "We want to know God: send us 
even a boy." "We want a White Ma like you to 
teach us book and washing and sewing." "We have 




"*±.-sS 



The Juju Tree. 



THE WHITE QUEEN OF OKOYONG 143 

money to pay a teacher, send one." Sometimes she 
laughed, and sometimes she cried. 

"What can I do ? I am only one poor old woman!" 

Then she prayed that more missionaries might 
hear these calls, and come out from Scotland to help. 
Sometimes another kind of cry came down the 
Creek. A messenger from Arochuku arrived. 

"Ma, the bad chiefs are going to thrust the 
teachers out of the land." 

Ma was startled. 

"And what did the teachers say?" she asked. 

"That the chiefs could put them out of the land, 
but they could not put them away from God." 

"Good, and what do the people say?" 

"That they will die for Jesus." 

"Why, that is good news!" Ma exclaimed with 
delight. "Go and tell them to be patient and strong, 
and all will be well." 

As there were no missionaries to come up and 
help her, she went on alone, this time into the great 
dark forest-land that stretched far to the west 
of Itu. It was the home of the Ibibios, that naked 
down-trodden race who had been so long the vic- 
tims of slave-hunters, "untamed, unwashed, un- 
lovely savages," Ma called them; but it was just 
because they were so wretched that she pitied them 
and longed to uplift them. Like Jesus, she wanted 
to go amongst the worst people rather than amongst 
the best. 



144 THE WHITE QUEEN OF OKOYONG 



The Government were now making a road 
through the forest, and as she looked at it stretch- 
ing away so straight and level and broad, she began 
to dream again. "I will go with the road," she 
said, "and build a row of schools and churches 
right across the land." She had troops of friends 
amongst the white officers, who all admired and 
liked her, and they, also, urged her to come, and 
one said she should get a bicycle. 

"Me on a bicycle!" she said. "An old woman 
like me!" 

She had watched their bicycles going up and 
down the road, and was afraid of them. She said 
she would not go near them in case they should 

explode; but one of 
the officers brought 
her out a beautiful 
machine from Eng- 
land, and that cured 
her. Shesoonlearned 
to ride, and it be- 
came a great help in 
her work. 

One day she took 
Etim, another of her 
bright scholars, who 
was only twelve, and set out for a village called 
Ikotobong, six miles beyond Itu, in a beautiful spot 
amongst the hills, and started a school and con- 




THE WHITE QUEEN OF OKOYONG 145 

gregation. Etim was the schoolmaster ! And right 
bravely the little fellow wrought ; very soon he had 
a hundred children deep in the first book. 

The head-teacher at Ikotobong, one of those who 
learned to love Jesus through her, thus tells the 
story of her coming: 

When she walked through the town she saw many idols 
which we all worshipped, and she pitied us very much. 
Seeing that the people were sitting in darkness she 
asked for a dwelling-place. The town's chiefs gave her 
a very nice little hill in the middle of the town. And 
from the first day all the people were astonished very 
much at her wisdom, gentleness, and love, because they 
had never seen a white person like her before. And 
amazement fell upon every one in the town concerning 
all that she told them about God, and pleasure filled 
their hearts because she lived amongst them. Before she 
came the people hated one another, and did not sit in 
love and peace, but when she came to us her good influ- 
ence and love becalmed us. Though she was an old 
woman she had to work like a very powerful big man. 
The Ibibio people wondered and wondered about her 
in gladness, she was so full of love to every one, and 
working hard every day for their good. So by all her 
kind and compassionate work she came to be called Adiaha 
Makara, meaning the eldest daughter of all Europeans, 
and Ma Akamba, meaning great madam. 

At last God answered Ma's prayers. Three 
things happened. 

First, the Church in Scotland, which was now 
called the United Free Church, resolved to follow 
her into the wilderness and made Itu into a regular 



146 THE WHITE QUEEN OF OKOYONG 

station with a doctor in charge. A hospital, called 
the Mary Slessor Mission Hospital, was added, and 
a launch was sent out for the Creek work. "It 
is just like a fairy-tale," said Ma. "I am so glad 
for the people." 

Next a man missionary was sent to Arochuku, 
and came back with such a glowing story of the 
numbers of people living there, and their longing 
for the right way, that he was sent up at once to 
open a station. 

Then the Church told Ma that they would place 
two ladies at Akpap, and she need not return, but 
remain in the wilds and be a pioneer. 

The sky of her life, which had been so dark be- 
fore, now became clear and blue and filled with 
sunshine. 

One afternoon a Government officer visited her 
and said: 

"Ma, what are we going to do?" 

The same question was always being put to her. 
Everybody, from the British officials down to run- 
away slaves, came to her for counsel and help ; few 
did anything in that part of the country without 
first talking to her about it. 

"What is it now?" she asked. 

"We want a magistrate for this big and impor- 
tant district, and we want a very clever and strong 
person who will be able to rule the people and see 
justice done." 



THE WHITE QUEEN OF OKOYONG 147 

"Well?" she asked again. 

"Oh, Ma, don't you see what I'm driving at?" 

"Fine that," she answered with a twinkle. "You 
want a very clever and strong man to rule 
this people, and see justice done, a very worthy 
aim." 

"Quite so, and you are the man we want, Ma." 

"Me? hoots, laddie, the tea must have gone to 
your head !" 

"No, Ma, I'm serious. We officers can't do the 
work; we haven't the language for one thing, and 
you know it better than the natives themselves; 
also you know all their ways and tricks ; they wor- 
ship you; you have great power over them; and 
what a chance to protect the women and punish 
the men as you like! Think of the twins, 
Ma!" 

"Ay," mused Ma, "it might help God's work. I 
don't like it, but I would do it for His sake." 

"Thank you, Ma. Your official title will be Vice- 
President of the Native Court, but of course you 
will be the real President and do as you like. The 
salary will be " 

"I'll take no salary," she snapped. "I'm not do- 
ing it for the Government. I'm doing it for 
God." 

By and by the letter from the Government came 
appointing her, and saying that her salary would 
be given to the Mission to help on her work. 



148 THE WHITE QUEEN OF OKOYONG 

So Ma became again the only woman judge in the 
Empire. The Court was held in a thatched building 
at Ikotobong. Ma sat at a small table, and around 
her were the chiefs getting their first lessons in 
acting justly and mercifully towards wrongdoers. 
Often she had to keep them in order. They were 
very fond of talking, and if they did not hold their 
tongues she just rose and boxed their ears. 

She sat long days trying the cases, her only food 
a cup of tea and a biscuit and a tin of sweets. She 
needed all her courage to get through, for the stories 
of sin and cruelty and shame poured into her ears 
were terrible for a white woman to hear. "We do 
not know how she does it," the other missionaries 
said. She could not have done it had it not been 
that she wanted to save her black sisters and the 
little children from the misery they suffered. 

She was like no other judge in the world, because 
she had no books to guide her in dealing with the 
cases, nothing but her knowledge of the laws and 
customs of the people and her own good sense. 
She knew every nook and cranny of the native 
mind, and although many lies are told in African 
Courts, no one ever deceived her. They often tried, 
but she always found them out, and then they 
would cower and slink away before her flashing eye. 
Very difficult questions which puzzled the Gov- 
ernment officials had sometimes to be decided, but 
Ma was never at a loss. Once two tribes laid claim 



THE WHITE QUEEN OF OKOYONG 149 

to a piece of land, and a British Commissioner tried 
for days to find out to whom it belonged, and failed. 
He was in despair. Ma came, and as usual ap- 
pealed to the people themselves. 

"Isn't it the custom for the tribes to whom land 
belongs to sacrifice to it?" 

"Yes, Ma." 

"Can you tell the tribe that has been in the habit 
of sacrificing to this bit of land?" 

"Yes, Ma. Our tribe," said one of the big men. 

"Then it belongs to you." 

"Quite right, Ma," cried every one, and they went 
away laughing. 

The people who came to Court were so ignorant 
and foolish that Ma sometimes did what no other 
judge would do ; she treated them like naughty chil- 
dren, and gave them a slap or a rap over the 
knuckles, and lectured them and sent them away. 
After sullen, fierce-looking men had been fined for 
some offence, she would take them to 
the Mission House and feed them 
and give them work. Then, in the 
evening, she would gather them to- 
gether and talk to them about Jesus. 

The oath given to the witnesses 
was not the British one, but the The ta PoT 
native one or mbiam. A pot or 
bottle was brought in filled with a secret liquid 
which had a horrible smell. One of the chiefs dipped 




150 THE WHITE QUEEN OF OKOYONG 




Giving the Oath. 



a stick into it and put some of the stuff on the 
tongue, head, arm, and foot of the witnesses, who 
believed that if they told 
a lie it would kill them. 
They often trembled with 
fear when taking it. Once 
one died suddenly after 
giving false evidence, and 
the people thought it 
was a judgment upon 
him. 

Judge Slessor had to 
look sharply after the 
native policemen, for they 
were important men in 
their own eyes, and often did things they ought 
not to have done. One went to summon villagers 
to clean the roads. The children in the Mission 
school were singing their morning hymn, and he 
rushed in among them lashing with his whip and 
shouting, "Come out and clean the roads." The 
teachers complained, and the policeman was tried 
before Ma. 

"You need to be punished," she said, "for you 
have grown so big that you will soon be knocking 
your head against the roof." This pleased the peo- 
ple even more than the punishment he got from 
the jury. 

The Court became famous in the land, for the 



THE WHITE QUEEN OF OKOYONG 151 

people knew that Ma understood them and gave 
them justice. So much, indeed, did they trust her 
that they got into the habit of taking their quar- 
rels and troubles first to the Mission House, and 
there Ma made peace and saved them going to 
law. Even when she was ill they came and squatted 
down outside her bedroom window, and the 
girls took in their stories to her, and she 
called out to the people and told them what 
to do. 

A young man, a slave, wanted to be free, and 
came to Ma. "I am sorry," she said, "the Court 
cannot do anything, but — the country lies before 
you." 

He took the hint, and bolted out of the 
district. 

A huntsman, in search of game, saw a movement 
amongst the bushes, and cried out, "Any one 
there?" There was no answer, and he fired. A 
scream made him rush to the spot, and to his horror 
he found that he had shot a girl. He carried her 
to the nearest house, where she died. He was 
brought up and tried, and acquitted, as he had 
not meant to harm her. But native law is "life for 
life," and the people demanded a life for the life 
that had been taken. The man, in his despair, ran 
to Ma. Cutting off a lock of his hair, he gave it to 
her. This meant that all he had was hers, and that 
the tribe would have to deal with her too. But she 



152 THE WHITE QUEEN OF OKOYONG 

knew that if he stayed he would be killed, and told 
him to fly, which he did. 

Ma was also going on with her real work, preach- 
ing and teaching, training boys and girls to become 
little missionaries, and carrying the light of the Gos- 
pel further and further into the heathen forest. 
And, as usual, she was dreaming dreams. She now 
remembered the dream of Mr. Thomson to build a 
holiday home for the missionaries. She said to 
herself, "Can I not build a little one for the ladies 
in Calabar?" Some money came to her, and she 
sought out a spot on the wooded hills nearer the 
Creek called Use, and began to put up several mud 
cottages that might be used for rest-homes. She 
did most of the work herself, with the aid of Janie 
and the other girls, sleeping the while on the floor 
in a hut. 

One night a lady missionary stayed with her 
who was anxious to get away early next morning. 

"All right," said Ma, "I'll set the alarum clock." 

The visitor looked puzzled, for there were no 
watches or clocks to be seen. Ma went out to the 
yard where the fowls were kept and brought in a 
rooster and tied it near the foot of her bed. At 
dawn the "alarum" went off; the cock crew, and 
the sleepers were roused. 

"Ma," said a Government doctor at last, "you 
will die if you do not take a rest." And very sor- 
rowfully she replied that it was likely, and so she 



THE WHITE QUEEN OF OKOYONG 153 

went home to Scotland, taking Dan and leaving 
Janie to take care of the other children. 

Dan, who was only six years old, proved a very 
handy little man-of -all-work. He soon learned to 
speak English, and ran her messages, carried her 
parcels, and even cooked her tit-bits of food. He 
had a royal time, being loaded with toys and books 
and sweets, and Ma was anxious that he should 
not be spoiled. She would often ask those with 
whom she stayed to allow him to sit on the floor, 
that he might not forget who he was. 

He had quick eyes, and saw everything. When 
he went out in a town with Ma he begged to have 
the money for the street cars, for, he said, "Gentle- 
men always pay for the ladies!" But he did not 
always understand what he saw. At table he 
thought the sharpening of the carving-knife on the 
steel was part of the grace before meals! 

Her friends found Ma much changed. "Oh, 
Mary," said one, "I didn't know you." 

"Nae wonder," she said, laughing, "look at my 
face!" It was dark and withered and wrinkled, 
though her eyes were as bright and merry as ever 
and full of changing lights. 

One day she went to pay a visit to Mrs. Scott, 
the lady of the manse at Bonkle, in Lanarkshire. 
They had written to one another for years, but 
had never met. There were young people there, 
and all were greatly excited, for the black boy was 



154 THE WHITE QUEEN OF OKOYONG 

also expected. Everything that love could think 
of was done for the comfort of the guest. At last 
the cab appeared at the bend of the road, and all 
hurried to the gate. Down jumped Dan smiling, 
sure of his welcome. Then was helped out a frail 
and delicate lady, who looked round shyly and 
brightly answered all the greetings. She walked 
slowly up the garden path, gazing at the 
green lawns and the flower-beds and the borders 
of shady trees, and drinking in the goodness of 
it all. 

"All this," she said, "and for me !" 
She was so weak and ill that she was glad to 
sink into a cushiony chair placed for her in the 
sunniest corner of the sunny room. The young girls 
followed her in. Stretching out her hands towards 
them, she cried : 

"Oh! how many of you lassies am I to get?" 
And, glad to tell, she did get one, Miss Young, 
who went out to Calabar and became to her like 
a daughter, and was afterwards picked out by the 
Church as the one best fitted to carry on the work 
that lay closest to her heart after she herself was 
done with it all. 

It was times like these that made Ma young 
again. She just wandered quietly about in the 
woods and meadows, or went and listened to the 
music practices in the church. She was delighted 
with the singing, and before leaving thanked the 



THE WHITE QUEEN OF OKOYONG 155 

precentor for the pleasure she had got, and he gave 
her his tuning-fork, which he valued, and she kept 
it as one of her treasures to the end. 

Coming out one night after the service, she looked 
up to the starry sky, and said, "These stars are 
shining upon my bairns — I wonder how they 
are"; and once, when "Peace, perfect peace? 
with loved ones far away!" was sung, she said: 
"I was thinking all the time of my children out 
there." 

She missed them more and more as the months 
went on. One afternoon, when she was sitting 
down to tea in a house in Perthshire, she begged 
to be allowed to hold a red-cheeked baby-boy on 
her knee. "It is more homely," she said, "and I 
have been so used to them all these years." 

Then she made up her mind. "I cannot stay 
longer, I am growing anxious about my children. 
I am sure they need me." Her friends tried to 
keep her, but no, she must go. They bade her fare- 
well at one or two large meetings, where her figure, 
little and fragile, and worn by long toil in the Afri- 
can sun, brought tears to many eyes. The meet- 
ings were very solemn ones. As she spoke of the 
needs of Africa, one who listened said : "It is not 
Mary Slessor who is speaking, but God." 

One night before she sailed she was found cry- 
ing quietly in bed, not because she had no friends, 
for she had many, but because all her own loved 



156 THE WHITE QUEEN OF OKOYONG 

ones were dead, and she was homeless and lonesome 
She just wanted her mother to take her into her 
arms, pat her cheek, and murmur, as she had done 
long ago, "Good-bye, lassie, and God be with you." 

Dan did not wish to leave all the delights of his 
life in Scotland, and although he had mechanical 
toys and books and sweets to cheer him, he sobbed 
himself to sleep in the train. 

So Ma looked her last upon the dear red and 
grey roofs and green hills of Scotland, for she never 
saw them again. 

She went to Use, which now became her home. 
It was a lonely place amongst trees, near the great 
new highway. A wonderful road that was. Bor- 
dered by giant cotton trees and palms, it ran up and 
down, over the hills, without touching a village or 
town. These were all cleverly hidden away in the 
forest, for the people had not got over their terror 
of the slave-hunters. Except on market-days the 
road was very silent, and you met no children 
on it, for they were afraid of being seized and made 
slaves. Leopards and wild cats roamed over it at 
night. 

At one part a number of rough concrete steps 
led to the top of the steep bank, from which a 
narrow path wound up the hillside and ended in 
a clearing in the bush. Here stood Ma's queer 
patchwork mud-house, just a shapeless huddle of 
odd rooms, with a closed-in verandah, the whole 



THE WHITE QUEEN OF OKOYONG 157 

covered with sheets of trade-iron, tin from mission- 
boxes, and lead from tea-chests. It was hard to 
find the door, the steps of which were of unhewn 
stones. 

She began to work harder than ever. What a 
wonder she was! She did all the tiresome Court 
business, sometimes sitting eight hours patiently 
listening to the evidence; she held palavers with 
chiefs; she went long journeys on foot into the 
wilderness, going where no white man went. On 
Sundays she visited and preached at ten or twelve 
villages, and between times she was toiling about 
the house, making and mending, nailing up roofs, 
sawing boards, cutting bush, mudding walls, laying 
cement. Was it surprising that her hands were 
rough and hard, and often sore and bleeding? 

She was seldom well, and always tired, so tired 
that at night she was not able to take off her clothes, 
and lay down with them on until she slept a little 
and was rested, and then she rose and undressed. 
At times she was on the point of fainting from 
pain, and only got relief from sleeping-draughts. It 
was true of her what one of the missionaries said : 
"God does most of His work here by bodies half- 
dead, but alive in Christ." 

She had now, however, hosts of friends, all will- 
ing to look after her. Nearly every one, officials, 
missionaries, traders, and natives, were kind to her. 
Sir Walter Egerton, the British Governor, and Lady 



158 THE WHITE QUEEN OF OKOYONG 

Egerton would send her cases of milk for the chil- 
dren, and the officials pressed upon her the use 
of their steamers and motor-cars and messengers 
and workmen. At Ikotobong was Miss Peacock, 
that girl with the great thoughtful eyes who had 
listened so eagerly to Ma when she had addressed 
the class in Falkirk years before. She became one 
of the many white daughters who hovered about 
her in the last years and ministered to her. Two 
missionary homes were open to her in Calabar, 
those of Mr. and Mrs. Wilkie and Mr. and Mrs. 
Macgregor, and there she was always made com- 
fortable and happy. 

Once Government officials found her so ill that 
they lifted her into the motor-car and took her 
down to the Mission House at Itu. Something rare 
and precious was there, a bonnie white child, the 
daughter of the doctor missionary. During the 
first few days when Ma was fighting for her life, 
little Mamie often went to her side and just stood 
and stroked her hand for a while, and then stole 
quietly away. 

When the turn for the better came, she charmed 
Ma back to health by her winning ways. For 
hours they swung together in the hammock on the 
verandah, and laughed and talked and read, their 
two heads bent over the pages of Chatterbox and 
The Adviser, and over the Hippopotamus Book and 
Puddleduck, and other entrancing stories. Some 



THE WHITE QUEEN OF OKOYONG 159 

times they got so absorbed in these that time was 
forgotten, and "Oh, bother!" they said when the 
sound of the gong called them to meals. Ma was 
still a little child at heart. 

After she returned to Use a new church was 
opened at Itu, and as she was not able to go down 
she wrote this letter to Mamie : 

I may not get to the big function, which will make me 
rather cross, as I have looked forward to it. Anyhow 
if I am not there will you pop my collection into the 
plate for me, like a bonnie lassie? I wish it were multi- 
plied by ten. 

I wanted you and me to have a loan of that pretty 
picture-book of your mother's. It has all the blouses 
and hats and togs that they keep in the store in Edin- 
burgh, and I was just set on our sitting together and 
picking out a nice coat and hat and pinafore, all of 
our own choosing, for you to wear in Scotland. Oh ! 
but you may be going to England? Oh well, they are 
much the same. But here we can't do it, for it will be 
too late to get them for you to land in. Anyhow ask 
that dear Mummy of yours to help you to choose, and 
you will buy them with these "filthy lucre" pennies. 
Mind, the Bible calls them "filthy lucre," so I am not 
saying bad words ! 

Now, dear wee blue eyes, my bonnie birdie, are we 
never to have a play again or a snuggly snug? We 
shall see, but I shall never forget those days with old 
Brown and Mittens and the Puddleduck relations, and 
all your gentle ways and winsome plays. Be Mama's 
good lassie and help her with all the opening day's work, 
and you yourself will be the bonniest there. If I am 
there you will sit beside me ! 



160 THE WHITE QUEEN OF OKOYONG 

Ma's mind was as restless as her body. She was 
for ever planning what more she could do for Jesus. 
Her new dream was a beautiful one, perhaps 
the best of all. To understand it you must know 
that the women and girls in West Africa all belonged 
to households, and were bound, by native law, to 
obey the heads of these — their masters. The 
compounds were their only homes. If they became 
Christians they still had to do what their heathen 
masters told them. When they were given orders 
which as true servants of Jesus they could not obey 
without doing wrong, they were in a fix, for if they 
left the compounds it was not easy for them to live, 
as they had no houses in which to stay and no 
farms where they could work and grow food. 
Ma had often thought of the problem, and now she 
made up her mind that the women and girls must 
be taught simple trades, so that if they had to 
leave the compounds they would be able to support 
themselves. 

And this was her dream. She would start a 
home for women and girls where she would take in 
waifs and refugees and other helpless ones, and 
train them to do things, such as the weaving of 
baskets, the making of bamboo furniture, shoe- 
making, and so on. They could also rear fowls 
and goats and cows, and dig, and grow food-plants 
and fruit-trees. And best of all, they would learn 
to be clean and tidy and unwomanly. 



THE WHITE QUEEN OF OKOYONG 161 

Ma was never long in making her dreams begin 
to take form. She went out one morning to look 
round the land at Use. Why, Use was the very 
place for the settlement! She would begin in a 
small way with just a few cottages and a garden, 
and gradually make it bigger. She started at once, 
and soon had many useful trees and plants in the 
ground, and fowls and goats and a cow in the 
yard. 

That cow was a wild one, and a great bother, 
as it was always breaking out and wandering into 
the forest. Ma had no tinkling bell, but she tied 
a tin pail to the beast so that the rattling noise 
might tell where it was. 

The stock had to be watched, for wild animals 
roamed about after dark, and leopards often sprang 
into the yard in search of prey. 

One or two rooms at Use were kept for visitors. 
The doors of these were sealed up with strips of 
bamboo and mud until they were wanted. Once 
two lady missionaries arrived, and had to sleep a 
night before the doors were hung. Not long before 
a leopard had carried off the cow's calf, and the 
ladies thought it wise to barricade the hole. Ma 
looked on smiling, and said : 

"There will be rats and lizards and centipedes, 
and maybe a snake, but a leopard would never 
come in . . . even though it did it would just look 
at you and go away again." 



162 THE WHITE QUEEN OF OKOYONG 

"We'll not give it the chance, Ma," said the 
ladies. 

"Well, I'll give you the cat: it will scare the 
rats at any rate." 

This cat, a big yellow one, had been found, 
when a kitten, meowing piteously by the side of 
a bush track, and was taken to the Mission House, 
where it became a favourite with Ma. It always 
travelled with her, lying in a canvas bag at the 
bottom of the canoe, or motor-car, and sometimes 
she carried it on her shoulder. 

The night did turn out to be a lively one, for 
although no leopard came, every other kind of 
creeping and jumping and flying thing paid the 
ladies a visit, and there was not much rest for them, 
nor for the yellow cat, which hunted the rats until 
the dawn. 




A West African Leopard. 




A Style of Hairdressing. 



CHAPTER IX 



Ma goes farther up the Creek and settles in a heathen town 
in the wilds; she enters into happy friendships with young 
people in Scotland; has a holiday in a beautiful island, 
where she makes a secret compact with a lame boy; and is 
given a Royal Cross for the heroic work she has done. 



One day there came out of the unknown a black 



"Mokomo Ma," he 
said, "I salute you. 
We come to see you. 
We are from Ikpe. 
•The soldiers and the 
people fought there 
and the people fled. 
I know about you and 
I told them and they 
want your help." 

"Ikpe?" echoed Ma. 
heard of it." 



trange-loc 


)ki 


rig men. 








OOOfiO/l(P£ 


^ 


tflROCHUKU 




^c?/£* ) /J 






Use 



'Where is that? I never 



163 



164 THE WHITE QUEEN OF OKOYONG 

"Far up the Creek," he replied vaguely; "two 
days by canoe. A big town." 

"But I never knew of trading canoes going there." 

"No, Ma, they don't allow Calabar men at Ikpe." 

"Oh, I see, a closed market. Well, what do they 
wish?" 

"They want to be god-men and learn book." 

She talked long with the men, whose cry was 
"Come yourself, Ma, come back with us." 

It was known that she was always ready to go 
anywhere at a moment's notice. 

"No, not now, I cannot, but I'll come soon" ; and 
having her promise they went away with light hearts. 

She was growing very, very feeble, and she 
shrank from entering a new place, where she would 
have no friends amongst the natives and could see 
no white faces, but the spirit of adventure still 
tugged at her heart, and one morning she boarded 
a canoe and went up the river. 

It was a wonderful thing, even for her, to lie in 
the canoe and watch the changing beauty of the 
Creek. They passed the places she knew, and then 
came to a region that was strange to her. Hour 
after hour they sped, pushing through the tangle 
of water-lilies, watching the fishermen plunging 
their spears into the mud after fish, passing farms 
where the green corn was sprouting, and bare 
landing-beaches where long canoes lay side by side, 
coasting along stretches of thick jungle where the 



THE WHITE QUEEN OF OKOYONG 165 

water was green and the air cool; where lovely 
flowers and ferns grew on the branches, and mon- 
keys gambolled and swung by their tails ; where but- 
terflies and dragon-flies glinted in the sunlight, and 
snakes slid down old trunks and stole rustling away. 

Now and again she saw the snout of a hippo- 
potamus, with its beadlike eyes, watching them, 
and noted that the banks were scored by their 
massive feet. After they had done eight hours' 
paddling one of these monsters rose angrily in front 
and opened its enormous jaws as if it would swallow 
the canoe and the paddlers and Ma and all. The 
stream was narrow and darkness was falling, and 
Ma said, "Well, well, old hippo, we won't dispute 
your right to turn us aside." The canoe made for 
the bank, and Ma stayed all night in a dirty little 
hut swarming with mosquitoes. The chief here 
had heard of her and the Jesus religion, and was 
already praying to what was to him the unknown 
God. "And my people just laugh at me," he said. 
Ma prayed with him and cheered him and left him 
happier. 

In the lovely morning light the canoe went on, 
until the Creek became like one of these little 
streams which feed the mills in Scotland. Ma had 
at last to get out and walk through the bush. She 
came to Ikpe, a large mud town, very dirty and 
smelly, where all sorts of tribes mingled, and found 
that the people wore little or no clothes, that the 



166 THE WHITE QUEEN OF OKOYONG 

girls and boys ran about naked, and that all, old 
and young, seemed more wicked and shameless than 
any natives she had seen. 

Only a few welcomed her, and these, having 
heard of her promise, and knowing that she always 
kept her word, had begun to build a church, with 
two rooms at the end for her to live in. It was 
situated in a circle of tall palm trees among which 
monkeys romped and chattered. 

She remained some days, living on native food, 
and when she left told the people she would come 
back. 

Several times she returned, and always the people 
asked : 

"Ma, have you come to stay?" 

"No, not yet." 

"Oh, Ma, when are you coming?" 

What could she reply? How could she leave 
the work at Use? She begged the Church to send 
up other ladies, but the months passed, and mean- 
while two churches were ready in the district, and 
the people were beseeching her to come. 

"It's another call," she said, "and I must obey. 
I'm an old woman and not very fit, but I'll do my 
best, and I'll carry on the work at Use too. No 
more idleness for me!" 

So up and down the Creek she went. The 
journey always took the best part of two days. A 
canoe, with ten paddlers, was sent down from Ikpe 



THE WHITE QUEEN OF OKOYONG 167 

to the beach near Itu. What a bustle there was at 
Use before everything was ready ! Then the house 
had to be shut up. This was done by nailing the 
windows, and building in the doorways with strips 
of wood and clay. 

In the afternoon the household set off, Ma sitting 
in the centre of the canoe on a chair, and the chil- 
dren and babies round her, and the yellow cat in its 
bag at her feet. When it grew dark they landed at 
some village and spent the night, and before day- 
break at four o'clock they were off again. Ma did 
not like the bit which was haunted by hippos. 
"But," she would say, "they haven't touched me 
yet; they just push up their ugly heads and stare 
at me." 

When the sun became strong and they were all 
hot and tired they went ashore at a clearing, and 
the paddlers lit a fire and cooked some food, Ma 
joking all the time to keep everybody happy. Ikpe 
beach was reached about four in the afternoon, 
and there was still a long walk before them, and it 
was a very weary company that lay down to rest. 

The paddlers were just the wild boys of Ikpe, 
very good-hearted under all their badness, as Ma 
told the Sunday School children of Wellington 
Church, Glasgow: 

They are ungrudging hard workers too. They paddle 
the whole day, singing as merrily as if the sun were not 
beating on them like a blazing fire. When we came up 



168 THE WHITE QUEEN OF OKOYONG 

a month ago we had such a heavy load of timber for 
building purposes that they could hardly get a seat. 
One chief on the road asked me to put a part of it at 
his beach as they would never be able to take it up, but 
the boys sturdily answered, "The canoe is good, let us 
go on." 

They pulled eight hours on end without stopping to 
eat a bite. About seven o'clock we all lay down, after 
holding worship in the canoe, and didn't they sing ! And 
then the moon began to show through the mist about 
3 a. m., and they jumped and pushed off, and then for 
eight hours pulled and sang and laughed and shouted 
in their high spirits, wakening the echoes of dreadful- 
looking places, where mud and ooze hold the crocodile 
and other creatures. 

It was the same coming back, and when they all 
arrived at Use they broke a little hole in the door- 
way and crept in and threw themselves down on 
bed and floor until morning. They were often 
soaked, and Ma sometimes was so tired and ill and 
racked with pain that she could not leave the canoe, 
but slept in it all night. "However can you do 
it?" she was asked. "Oh," she replied cheerily, 
"I just take a big dose of medicine and wrap myself 
in a blanket and manage fine." 

Once when she got back to Use she found that a 
tornado had damaged the house, and she began 
to repair it with her own hands. The hard work 
was too much for her, and she took to her bed and 
became delirious. Yet she struggled up and went 
over to the church and sat in a chair and preached. 



THE WHITE QUEEN OF OKOYONG 169 




A young missionary, Dr. Hitchcock, had come 
out to take charge of the medical station at Itu for 
a time. He had 
heard of Ma and 
of her masterful 
ways, but he was 
strong too, and 
not afraid of her, 
and when he saw 
her so ill he took 
her in charge and 
ordered her firmly 
to do what he bade 
her, just as if she 
had been a child. 
Poor Ma ! She was 

a child in strength then, and she obeyed him meekly, 
and he treated her like a mother and she loved him 
as a son, and under his kind and watchful care she 
gradually got better. "But you mustn't cycle any 
more," he said, "you are past that now." So some 
friends in Scotland sent her out a basket-chair on 
wheels which the boys and girls pushed, and in this 
she continued to make her journeys into the forest. 

A special joy in these lonely days was the love 
of many girls and boys at home. She told one that 
she had always a few choice packets of letters lying 
beside her chair and bed, and took them up as one 
would take up a book, and read them over and over 



The Church at Ikpe. 



170 THE WHITE QUEEN OF OKOYONG 

again. Many were from her little friends. They told 
her about their schools, their games, their holidays, 
their pets, and their books — the letters of one boy, 
she said, were always like a sardine tin, they were 
so packed full of news — and she sent long replies 
back, wonderful replies, full of fun and stories and 
nonsense and good sense. 

One of the mothers said she was very kind to 
take such bother. 

"Why," she wrote, "look at their kindness to me ! The 
darlings, with their perfectly natural stories and their 
ways of looking at everything out of a child's clear 
innocent eyes, and the bubbling over of the joys of a 
healthy life. It is a splendid tonic, and just a holiday 
to me too, taking me with them to the fields and the 
picnics and the sails on the lochs. Oh, one can almost 
feel the cool breeze and hear their shouts. Don't you 
think for a moment that though I am like a piece of 
wrinkled parchment my heart is not as young as ever 
it was, and that I don't prefer children to grown-up folks 
a thousand times over. I would need to, for they have 
been my almost sole companions for twenty-five years 
back. Oh, the girls at home are so bonnie with their 
colour and their hair and their winsome ways. I just 
loved to look at and to talk with them when I could. 
In church and Sunday School they were a thing of beauty 
and a joy to me all the time. I don't say that I don't 
love black bairns better and know them better than white 
ones, for I do. But one must confess to the loveliness 
of Scottish girls." 

One of her most loving and diligent little corre- 
spondents was Christine Grant Millar Orr, who 



THE WHITE QUEEN OF OKOYONG 171 

stayed in Edinburgh, and was, at this time, just 
thirteen, a clever girl, fond of writing stories and 
poems, and as good as she was clever. 

Her fresh young heart went out to the weary and 
lonely old lady in the African bush who chatted to 
her so charmingly. "You have a genius for letter- 
writing," she told Ma. "Your letters are so full 
of news and yet so full of love and tenderness and 
your own dear self." 

Here is a bit from one of Ma's letters to her : 
What a bonnie morning this is ! It will be dark and 
cold with you. It is half-past six, and I am in the little 
verandah which is my sanctum. We have had break- 
fast, but I am not yet able to do any work, as I need an 
hour or so to get the steam up. So I shall bid you a 
good-morning, and just wish you could be here to enjoy 
our bush, and cocoa-nut and oil and wine palms which 
surround us, all wrapped in a bewitching lovely blue 
haze from the smoke of the wood fire. Yes, you would 
even enjoy the pungent smell of the bush smoke, and 
would think there were few places like Calabar. . . . But 
an hour later ! Oh, it will be hot ! 

Ma thus tells Christine about the "smokes" sea- 
son, which lasts from November to February: 

It is a funny season when the air is so thick with what 
seems fine sand that you can't see ten yards away, and 
the throat and back of the nose and the whole head is 
dry and disagreeable, just like influenza at home. Be- 
tween these "smokes," which are supposed to come from 
the Great Sahara Desert, the hot season blazes forth 
in all its fury, and one feels so languid and feeble, and 



172 THE WHITE QUEEN OF OKOYONG 

wonders where one can go for a breath of air or a mouth- 
ful of cold water. Then the snow on the moors and 
the biting winds and the sea waves of your cold land 
sing their siren songs. 

No wonder Christine wrote back: 

How I should love to take you bodily out of African 
heat and work and give you a long sweet holiday at The 
Croft, with your face to the greenest field in Scotland, 
and the great hills and the fresh caller air everywhere. 
The blossom, white and pink, the laburnum, the heavy 
masses of hawthorn, the sweet odours of wallflower, the 
calling of the blackbirds, the mossy lawn, the shady 
glade with birch trees and wild hyacinths and baby 
birdies in the hedges, and the glorious warm spring sun- 
shine gliding through the leaves — how you would love 
them all ! 

Kind hearts at home knew of the longing for a 
change that sometimes came to Ma, and one of the 
ladies of the Church, Miss Cook, like a fairy god- 
mother, quietly arranged that she should take a 
trip to the Canary Islands, and paid all the cost. 
Ma felt it was a very selfish thing for her to accept 
when there were others who also needed a rest, but 
the doctors said: 

"Ma, if you go you will be able for a lot of work 
yet." 

"In that case," she replied, "I'll go." She took 
Janie with her. 

It was her first real holiday, for she had nothing 
to do but bask in the sunshine among the flowers 



THE WHITE QUEEN OF OKOYONG 173 



and be petted by everybody, especially by Mr. and 
Mrs. Edisbury, who managed the hotel at which 
she stayed. What a time of joy it was! "From 
the first hour we arrived in fear and trembling," she 
said, "to the hour we left with a heart full to over- 
flowing, our visit was 
a delicious vision of 
every kind of loveli- 
ness." 

She was not long 
in the hotel before 
she heard that Mrs. 
Edisbury had a little 
lame son, nine years 
old, named Ratcliffe, 
who could only walk 
about o n crutches. 
She could hardly walk 
herself then, and her 
tender heart was filled 

with love and pity and sympathy for the boy. "Oh," 
she said, "I must see him." She found him in 
the nursery, a very bright and eager child, and at 
once they became fast friends. For hours he would 
sit by her side, his great grey-blue eyes fixed on 
her face, while she told him thrilling stories of her 
adventures in wild Africa. 

Before they parted they had a quiet talk and 
made a secret bargain. Each was to do something 




174 THE WHITE QUEEN OF OKOYONG 

every day only known to themselves; nobody was 
to be told — not even Ratcliffe's own mother. His 
face was glowing when they were planning it, and 
he felt it was splendid to have a secret which one 
would think about from day to day, but which no 
other person would know of. His mother and aunt 
heard that it had been made, and sometimes they 
teased him to tell, but he just smiled, and nothing 
ever made him open his lips and speak of it. We 
shall learn by and by what it was. 

On board the steamer going back Ma wrote a 
long letter to Ratcliffe: 

You were in the land of Nod long before our boat 
came in, so neither Janie nor myself could go to say 
good-bye to you. But what do you think your dear 
daddy did? Just came away with us in the middle of 
the night, in the dark and the cold, and took us to the 
boat with all our luggage and stuff, and in the dark 
found our way for us to the big steamer, and then up 
the long stair at the ship's side, and brought us into the 
cabin where I am now sitting, and which has to be our 
home for the next ten days or so. And your dear 
mother waited up to say good-bye, and so did your dear 
aunty, and they sent us off laden with apples and flowers, 
and, better still, with warm loving wishes and hopes that 
we should meet again. My heart was glad and thankful, 
but it was very sore and sorry, and I am afraid I cried 
a wee bit when Mr. Edisbury went away out into the 
dark and left us. How happy your dear parents and 
your auntie made us ! and how good it was to meet 
you. It will ever live as a picture in my heart and mem- 



THE WHITE QUEEN OF OKOYONG 175 

ory the times we spent with you, and it was very good 
for Janie to know you. . . . 

We have a crowd on board, and to-day we had a 
birthday cake to tea, because it is a lady's birthday. As 
no one ever asks a lady how old she is — you remember 
us talking about that — well, they put 21 on the icing of 
the cake, but she is an old lady, and they made her 
funny presents, a little dolly, and a china pug dog with 
a tail that keeps wagging after you have touched it, and 
some beads. It was such fun. There is so little to do 
on board that every one gets wearied, and wants a bit 
of fun to pass the hours away. . . . 

And now, dear little friend, good-bye. Be good and 
brave, and hurry putting your pennies in the bank so 
that you can come to see us and stay a long time. Janie 
sends her compliments to you and to all, and says, "Do 
not forget us." So say I. 

Joyful days in Ratcliffe's life were these when 
letters arrived from Ma, "bang, bang from the 
wilds," as she said. In all she spoke of the mysteri- 
ous secret. "Now, sonny," she would say, "do you 
remember our little secret treaty? I do, and keep 
it. There is a telephone and a telegraph, secret, 
wireless, swift, which never fails, and it carries to 
Canary via the Kingdom of God." Or this, "Are 
you remembering our old secret? Dear old sweet- 
heart, so am I, and I get surer and surer than ever 
for the Best. Keep on!" 

Sometimes Ratcliffe wrote in reply, sometimes 
his mother or auntie, but always there was a mes- 
sage to say that "the secret was being kept." 



176 THE WHITE QUEEN OF OKOYONG 

Ratcliffe liked to hear about the children and 
their doings and about the teeming life of the forest, 
"cunning things among insects and beautiful flies 
and butterflies and small creatures among the bushes 
glistening like fine stones or flowers," but best of 
all he loved the snake stories like this : 

One night in the dark there came up to my ears small 
screams from below. Janie was jumping about and Annie 
and she were throwing things, and by the light of the 
fire it looked awful. Janie laughed back to my screams, 
"It is a snake, don't come," and she was lashing all 
she was able with a stick. Annie was making noise, 
and not much more. I got round in my slow way to 
the outside. Janie had forced it back till she and Annie 
and Maggie were all on the outside and could run, but 
Janie held on, and I threw her a machete and she hacked 
the things into bits. In the morning the bits were all gone, 
some other beast had eaten it, and there were only 
marks. Another day Janie was chasing with the oth- 
ers a horrid thing we call Asawuri. I don't know what 
it is in scientific English. It makes a long oo-o-oo-o of 
a note and lives in the bush in a hole. It is bigger 
than a lizard and marked handsomely like a snake, and 
has a deadly poison; that's why God has given it the 
note of warning, I suppose. Janie killed it. ... I am 
always keeping my secret. Are you? Don't slacken! 
Don't tell. 

Ma always tried to cheer and help him : 
I expect you will be at school by this time. Are you? 
How do you like it? Do the masters give any punish- 
ments? I am sure they won't need to do that with you, 
for you will be doing your best. But it will sometimes 



THE WHITE QUEEN OF OKOYONG 177 

be hard to do lessons when it is hot, and you will want 
to do other things; and let me whisper a secret to you. 
I, too, am an awful duffer at arithmetic! I simply 
can't do it. Never mind, I've got on fairly well, and 
so will you; and now I have only the sums of the boys 
in the school to bother me, and I never give them 
harder ones than I can do quickly and explain well 
myself. You will come out on top some day. All the 
same, try for all you are worth and catch up. Auntie 
and mother will help you — that's what aunties and 
mothers are for, you know. Just you put your arms 
round auntie's neck and look at her with your bonnie 
speaking eyes, and you'll see what will happen. Janie 
can't count at all, she never could, and I had a great 
pity always for her, and yet what could I do without 
Janie? She is worth a thousand mathematicians to me 
and to our people. 

Ma rejoiced that she was able to do a little more 
for her beloved Master, and she began to take more 
care of her health. She did not want to be great 
or famous, only to walk very quietly from day to 
day, and do simple things, looking after the needs 
of her people and fighting the sin and ignorance 
that marred their lives. So we find her again at 
Use and Ikpe spending the long hours preaching, 
teaching, doctoring, building, cementing, painting, 
varnishing — a very humble and happy woman. 

She paid a visit to Okoyong, the first since she 
had left eight years before. The wild old station 
had become so quiet and peaceful that it was almost 
like a bit of Scotland, and there was a fine new 



178 THE WHITE QUEEN OF OKOYONG 

church. Everybody came to "kom" her, and she 
could scarcely get her meals for talking about the 
long ago. She saw Erne Ete and Mana, and lye 
the mother of Susie, and Esien, now a leading 
Christian, and many others; and when she went 
over to the church she found four hundred people 
gathered to hear her, the men and boys in the centre, 
and the women in coloured frocks and head-dresses 
at the side, while the children sat in rows on the 
floor. All were clean and tidy, and she thought 
what a big change it was from the terrible days 
when the naked villagers were only fond of drink 
and bloodshed. 

"Yes," said a church member later to one of the 
lady missionaries, "even the leopards became less 
bold and dangerous when Ma came!" 

She was glad to have a talk with Erne Ete, but 
sorry to know that she was still a heathen, and 
sacrificed every day in her yard to a mud white- 
washed figure of a woman that had egg-shells for 
eyes. There was also a mud altar on which she laid 
her offerings of palm-wine, gin, and food, and some- 
times she put a fowl or eggs in the lap of the image. 
Her rooms were full of charms, such as bunches of 
grass and feathers and bottles. It made Ma very 
sad. Erne Ete died soon after, and from the roof of 
her house was hung a great fold of white satin, which 
is a sign of death in a heathen home, and the doors 
were shut and the place left to rot and fall to pieces. 



THE WHITE QUEEN OF OKOYONG 179 

Though Ma was hidden away in the African 
forest and thought she was a nobody, there were 
others who, knowing what she had done, and having 
been helped by her example, made up their minds 
that her story should not be left untold. They 
wrote it out, and by and by it came into the hands 
of Sir Frederick Lugard, the Governor-General of 
Nigeria, as the whole country was now called, and 
he, marvelling at the tale, sent it home so that it 
might be brought to Royal notice. 

One day a native runner appeared in the yard at 
Use with a bundle of letters, amongst which was 
a large one that looked important. Ma turned it 
over and wondered what it could be. It was from 
a very famous and ancient society, the Order of the 
Hospital of St. John of Jerusalem, which has the 
King at its head and other Royal persons amongst 
its officials, begging that she would agree to become 
one of its Honorary Associates and accept the Silver 
Cross which it gave to those who were noted for 
goodness and good work. 

She looked at her torn dress and her rough hands 
and her bare feet, and around at the poor little 
shanty of a house, and chuckled. 

"Fancy me with a Royal medal!" she said. 
"What have I done? I dinna deserve anything 
for doing my duty. I couldna' even have done that 
unless God had been with me all the time. To Him 
be all the honour." 



180 THE WHITE QUEEN OF OKOYONG 

"But," she added, "it's nice too, for it will let 
the folk here ken that the King is interested in the 
work that we are doing." And so, being a loyal 
subject, she wrote back, saying "Yes." 

Another letter arrived telling her that her election 

had been approved by King George V., and then 

came the beautiful diploma. But she had to go 

down to Duke Town to be given the Cross at a 

public meeting, and this was 

a great trial. Everybody, 

however, was kind and 

treated her like a princess. 

While they were praising 

her she sat with her face 

buried in her hands, and 

when she spoke she made it 

Ma's Silver Cross. seem as if the honour were 

"•"bSASS* ,he done to the Mission and not 

to herself. A bouquet of 
roses was handed to her, and when she got home to 
Use she planted a stem beside the rough-hewn steps, 
and to her delight it grew and flourished. When she 
died a cutting from it was planted on her grave. 
Of course she had to tell Ratcliffe all about the 
affair. "The Silver Cross," she said, "is a nice 
thing called a decoration, which one wears on spe- 
cial occasions, and is just like a prize given at school 
to a boy. You wonder what I got a prize for ? So 
do I ! I can't make it out at all. But you see our 




THE WHITE QUEEN OF OKOYONG 181 

King is so good and kind, he is always doing nice 
things, and this is one of them." 

Ashamed of all that people were saying and 
writing about her, she hastened up to Use, where 
she pinned the cross on her breast to show the girls 
how it looked. 

By this time Mary and Annie were married and 
had homes of their own, and Alice and Maggie were 
at Duke Town learning to wash and iron and cut 
out and make clothes, and Dan was also at school. 
Once Dan had a splendid holiday, and Ma tells Rat- 
cliffe about it : 

Dan has gone up the Cross River with his master to 
a new country where coal has been found and where tin 
has been found, and where our wonderful fellow-coun- 
trymen are to build a railway which will enter and open 
up new lands and peoples and treasures, and add to the 
wealth and greatness of our Empire. The coal will make 
the biggest changes you can think of. It is like a fairy 
tale. Just think, if we have coal, we can start to manu- 
facture everything out here, for we have material for 
almost everything, and all the timber in these endless 
forests can then be sent over the world. And what 
crowds of people from Britain and here will be getting 
employment at the railways and the mines ! It is a won- 
derful old world this, isn't it? We are always hearing 
that it is played out. 

Among the men who were opening up the wild 
country, officials, engineers, and traders, Ma had 
many dear friends, and she was always praising 
them up for the work they were doing. 



182 THE WHITE QUEEN OF OKOYONG 

"We come of a wonderful race, Ratcliffe," she 
said. "How proud I am of our countrymen many 
a time. How brave they are ! What knowledge 
and grit they possess ! How doggedly they hold on ! 
How they persevere and win ! No wonder a hand- 
ful of them rule the horde of natives and leave 
their mark. The native, clever in his own way, 
just stares and obeys." 




Memorial to a Dead Chief. 




m 



Ma's humble House on the Hill: the last she built. 



CHAPTER X 

This chapter tells how Ma became a gipsy again and lived 
on a hill-top, and how after a hard fight she won a new re- 
gion for Jesus; gives some notes from her diary and letters 
to little friends at home, and pictures her amongst her 
treasures. 



Some distance from Ikpe there is a high hill called 
Odoro Ikpe, on which the Government has a rest- 
house. 

Ma climbed up there one Saturday night. 

"What a grand view!" she cried, as she looked 
over the wide plain and breathed in the cool fresh 
wind with a great content, "I've never been so 
high before." 

And then her eyes grew sad. For all that green 
country was the home of heathenism. The chiefs 
had shut and bolted the door of their hearts against 
Jesus, and would not let any teachers or missionaries 
come in and disturb their ways. 
183 



184 THE WHITE QUEEN OF OKOYONG 

Ma had often gone to them in her wheeled chair, 
fording rivers, crossing swamps, pushing through 
wet forests, and stood and knocked at their hearts 
in His name, but in vain. They were afraid that 
if she came all their old fashions would tumble 
down about their ears. 

She was not the one to lose courage. As she sat 
there on the hill-top, she dreamed that she saw the 
whole region being won for Jesus, and the people 
coming to His house clothed and in their right mind. 

"O God !" she prayed, "old and feeble and un- 
worthy as I am, help me to win them." 

And there and then she put on her armour and 
braced herself for battle. 

"Janie," she said, "we'll stay here until we over- 
come these chiefs." 

Janie looked round and grunted. The rest-house 
had only holes for windows; there was a doorway, 
but no door; the floor was of dried mud, and there 
was not even a table or a chair. But Ma could be 
happy with nothing, she would have been content 
with bare ground for a bed, and the starry sky for 
a covering. She did, indeed, find that it was better 
to sleep in the open air than in the stuffy rest-house, 
and she lay down every night in the verandah with 
the cool wind fanning her cheeks. 

Day after day she called the chiefs and talked 
with them; she coaxed the little boys and girls, 
who were timid and sullen, to come and learn 



THE WHITE QUEEN OF OKOYONG 185 



ABC; she stood at night in the villages when the 
women were cooking at their fires and the young 
people were dancing to the sound of the drum, and 
spoke to all who would listen of the love of Jesus 
and His power to free them from sin. 

And at last, after a weary struggle, her patience 
and goodness and humour melted the hard hearts, 
and one by one the 
chiefs came and said 
they would allow her 
to do anything she 
liked, and they 
would try to worship 
her God and learn 
the new ways. 

Her heart was full. 
She went out in the 
cool of the night and 
stood gazing over the 
dim plain. All was 
silent and still, and 
the stars were shin- 
ing more gloriously than she had ever seen them be- 
fore. Her eyes swept over them, as they often 
did, and rested on the Southern Cross, the group 
she loved most of all, because it was the symbol of 
her dear Lord watching over the dark and sinful 
world, and her thin worn face was beautiful, for her 
dream had come true. 




186 THE WHITE QUEEN OF OKOYONG 

She went in and sat on the floor, and leant her 
weary back against the wall of the room, and wrote 
by the light of a candle stuck in its own grease, 
telling her friends how happy she was — the happiest 
woman in all the world. 

"I can't think," she said, "why God has so 
highly honoured and trusted me." 

She was a wreck, her body was a mass of pain, 
she was growing deaf and blind, she was tired and 
weak, and oh, so lonely ! Yet her heart was bursting 
with love and gratitude and joy. O wonderful Ma! 

All this time she was working three stations — 
Use, Ikpe, and Odoro Ikpe, and going constantly 
between them. She kept a diary, and every night 
— often in the middle of the night — she wrote in it 
the story of the day. And what a story of toil and 
heroism it is ! Here are one or two little sentences 
from it: 

Left the beach for Ikpe in the evening, sail in moon- 
light; reached Ikpe 4 p. m. next day; ran on to a tree; 
boys thrown into the water. 

Egbo out all night, screaming and drumming like mad- 
men till daylight. All drunk. 

First night in new house. Sorry to leave the wee hut 
I have enjoyed so much comfort and blessing in. 

Patients from early morning; man bitten by rat; 
another by snake. School begun, nearly a hundred 
scholars. 

First Christian funeral at Ikpe. 

Chiefs here by daybreak for palavers, 



THE WHITE QUEEN OF OKOYONG 187 

Splendid congregation. People changing for the 
better. 

Terrific thunderstorm. School-boys drenched. Got a 
big fire on in hall, and all sat round the blaze and I gave 
them a reading lesson. 

A great reception at Use — thank God for the girls and 
home. Thank God for sleep ! 

On roof all day, head and neck aching, hands broken 
and bleeding. 

Carrying sand, cleaning corn patch, mudding and rub- 
bing walls. 

Cut my first two roses from the rose bush — lovely, a 
tender gift from God. 

After sleepless night found white ants in millions in 
the drawers. 

Washed a big washing. 

Terrific rain storm, no school. 

Very feeble, scarcely able to stand upright in church. 

Horrid night with cross child. 

Lovely letters from dear ones. God is very good to 
me. 

Every boy in school clothed to-day for first time. 

Heaps of sick babies. 

Full up with work till late at night. Dead tired. 

Two women murdered on the way from market and 
their heads taken away. 

Fever; trying to make a meat safe. 

Sleepless night, baby screaming every few minutes. 

Splendid fever-sleep full of dreams. Thank God for 
daily strength to go on however feeble. Thank God 
for the girls who got up and got me tea without any 
bother. 

Reached Rest House at darkening. A fearful night 
of misery with mosquitoes and hard filthy ground on 



188 THE WHITE QUEEN OF OKOYONG 

which we lay. Rose at first streak of dawn and never 
was so glad to leave a place. Baby yelled all night. 

Nothing done, low fever, but a very happy day. 

Fever, stupor sleep. Lost count of days. 

Useless after utterly sleepless night. Made such ser- 
mons and delivered them all night long. 

Her friends in Scotland began to call her home, 
tempting her with visions of rest and peace and 
lazy days in gardens amongst flowers and all sorts 
of good and loving things, but though she thought 
of it with longing and tears, she said she must first 
build a house on the hill-top of Odoro Ikpe to be 
ready for a missionary when the Church sent one. 
After that perhaps. . . . 

So she started to put up her last house, and 
because she was so feeble and her gang of labourers 
were such idlers and drones, she found it the hardest 
task she had ever tried to do. "The African works 
well," she said, 'if you are at hand to guide and 
spur him on, but just leave him and he sits down 
and talks or sleeps till you come back." So vexed 
sometimes was she with the men dawdling over 
their trifling bit of work that she would rise and 
box their ears, but they just laughed and thought 
it a fine joke. Ma did not like to do such things : 
she wrote to one of her little correspondents : "You 
would have thought your missionary friend was 
rather hard-hearted, but hard things have to be 
done and said when one's heart aches to say and do 
most melting things." 



THE WHITE QUEEN OF OKOYONG 189 

Ma had more hope of the children than of the 
grown-ups, and she tried to get hold of them and 
teach them. "Though they are black," she told a 
boy in the Highlands, "they are just as bonnie and 
nice as if they were white. Indeed the colour does 
not matter. We are all the same inside our heads 
and hearts, and the little lads who know about 
Jesus are trying as hard to be good and brave Chris- 
tians as you boys who are white." 

She was specially hopeful about the boys. Once 
a missionary spoke to her about one who seemed 
to have no wish to be a Christian, and she replied, 
"Dinna gie up hope. You dinna ken what is behind 
him and what he has to fight against. His mother 
has maybe made him promise not to do it — perhaps 
made him chop mbiam (take the solemn oath) over 
it." And after she talked with the boy she said, 
"He's a fine laddie, and ye'll have him yet." 

Many boys came to her for help in their troubles, 
and how patiently she listened to what they had 
to say, and how wisely and tenderly she spoke to 
them! She loved them all, and thought about 
them just as a kind mother would have done. To 
those who were going to be taught and trained she 
said, "You must be the leaders of your race and 
help them to rise, but you can only lead others to 
Jesus if you follow Him closely yourself." 

That was always what she was telling her own 
children: "Keep close to Jesus." "Bairns," she 



190 THE WHITE QUEEN OF OKOYONG 

would say, "it's the wee lassie that sits beside her 
mother at meal-times that gets all the nice bittocks. 
The one who sits far away and sulks disna ken what 
she misses. Even the pussy gets more than she 
does. Keep close to Jesus the Good Shepherd all 
the way." 

When the Government took a number of the Ikpe 
lads to work on the new railway being built to the 
coal-fields they came to Ma and said they were 
afraid to go so far. 

"God will go with you and keep you," she said. 
"Try and find out some one who preaches the 
Gospel and keep near him." 

On the fly-leaf of a Bible she gave one of them, 
she wrote : 

Ud'6 Ekpenyoii Edikpo. 

Trusting he will hold by the truths of this Holy Book 
when in the midst of strangers he may be exposed to temp- 
tation. Never forget prayer when reading. — Your friend, 

M. Slessor. 

"This book," she told Udo, "will be a lamp to 
you and guide you." 

These young men returned none the worse for 
their exile. 

The boys who wanted to be good had more to 
put up with than those at home. At Ikpe there 
was an mbre, or play, called ekang, and all young 
men had to join it and pay a fee of £10. Those 
who would not were fined ten rods, some fish, some 



THE WHITE QUEEN OF OKOYONG 191 



leaves called akan, and two jars of palm wine, and 
had to appear in the street and dance backwards 
to the beat of the drum, and then were flogged and 
hounded to their homes. This custom Ma put down. 

Once the chiefs gave orders that all men were 
to hunt in the bush, and the animals caught were 
to be sacrificed and eaten in honour of the Ndems 
in the town. The lads of 
the Church refused to go 
to the hunt or to eat of 
the sacrifice. "Then," 
said the chiefs, "you will 
be banished." Word was 
sent to Ma, who was at Use, 
and when she came she told 
the chiefs that no lad must 
be forced to do anything 
against his conscience, and 
from that day to this there 
has been neither hunt nor 
sacrifice. 

The people sacrificed and 
ate animals before the Ndems, because they believed 
that it would make the yams on their farms grow 
big. Ma said God alone gave them such a blessing, 
and that the children of the Church could no longer 
follow the custom. It was not long before the 
custom was stopped. 

She was very far out of the world, and seldom 




A Town Ndem. 



192 THE WHITE QUEEN OF OKOYONG 

saw a white face. How glad she was when Mr. 
Bowes from Calabar appeared. They walked to- 
gether from Ikpe to Odoro Ikpe. On the road she 
stopped and helped a woman to lift a very heavy 
load of palm nuts to her head. Then she went into 
the compound of an old chief who was ill, found 
out what was the matter, and arranged to send him 
medicine. At the entrance were three white chick- 
ens with their heads cut off. "It is a sacrifice," she 
said. "Oh, the pity of it." On going up the steep 
hill Mr. Bowes wanted to carry a bag she had slung 
over her shoulder. "Na, na, laddie," she said, "it's 
my cat and it helps to balance me." 

Writing to Ratcliffe at this time, she says : 
I have been without money for nearly a month ! What 
do you think of that? Sometimes, but not very often, 
we have been hungry because we had not enough money 
to send to the market to buy food. The workmen make 
such a hole in my pocket. It is very difficult to get 
money brought from Calabar, and then the people won't 
take English money when it does come. They use 
copper wires, which we buy from the next station. Don't 
we live a very funny life? Pure gipsies, only we don't 
steal. 

"It is sometimes a rather wearying kind of liv- 
ing, the gipsying sort of life," she told Christine; 
"but while there are no workers to go round we 
must do this as the second best way of holding on." 
And then she wonders what her little friend is doing 
and asks, "Are you going to do something fine in 



THE WHITE QUEEN OF OKOYONG 193 

the new year? I trust so. At least you will be 
good, and To Be is a better verb than To Do in 
my estimation." 

She began to remember that Christine was grow- 
ing up, and did not like the idea. So she says to 
her: "I shall try and keep you in my heart with 
all the sweet mystery of girlhood. I should like, for 
many things, just to keep you among the simple 
loves and pleasures of home, and not to let you 
slip over into the womanhood which has such heights 
and depths that alternately beckon and frighten one. 
But God's order is the only right one, and you have 
a claim on Him." 

"I shall be fifteen this August," Christine replied. 
"I am rather sorry we are all getting so big. How- 
ever, there is one comfort, when we grow bigger we 
will be able to go out into the world and do good 
things, and perhaps splendid things, and help to 
make people better and happier — though, of course, 
we can do that always." 

That was what Ma liked to hear, and when any 
of her young friends grew up and married and went 
out into that world of which Christine spoke, she 
would send them lovely messages. Here is one to 
a grand-niece of Mr. and Mrs. Goldie (the pioneer 
missionaries of Calabar who had been so good to 
her) when she was about to sail to America: 

My dear Lassie — You do not know me, but your par- 
ents and all belonging to you are very dear to me, and I 



194 THE WHITE QUEEN OF OKOYONG 

have always, from before you were born, loved you all 
and tried to follow you all. 

And now God is calling you to live your life and to 
witness for Him in a strange land; and doubtless you 
will have fits of home-sickness, and times when you will 
want those who have hitherto made your world for you, 
and sometimes your husband will feel the same, for mar- 
riage does not — if it be a wholesome and sane one — 
destroy the old loves, but as one who knows what the 
leaving home means, I know that you will find your Sav- 
iour near, and all-sufficient for all times and things. 

Do you know a good old practice of ours in a strange 
land has been to sing the 2nd Paraphrase every Saturday 
night. You tell your husband to try it. At worship 
every Saturday night you sing that, and though your 
voices break, you will find it a tonic. 

You will have all your things packed up and ready 
and your purchases all made, but as there are always a 
few small odds and ends, as hairpins and button-hooks, 
etc., left at the end when you are ready to embark and 
your boxes not at hand, I enclose a few shillings to have 
in your pocket for that emergency. 

I remember Mrs. Goldie having forgotten gloves and 
safety-pins in Liverpool, and we rushed out of the cab 
to get them on our way to the steamer ! 

May every blessing go with you, and may your mar- 
ried life be a long and useful and happy one. He who 
hath hitherto led you will still compass your path. — Yours 
affectionately, Mary Slessor. 

Ma loved to hear how the girls at home were 
working for Jesus. How interested she was in all 
the new things that were being started — the Girls' 
Auxiliaries, the Study Circles, and Guilds! "The 



THE WHITE QUEEN OF OKOYONG 195 

Church," she said, "is wise in winning the young, 
for they are going to be the mothers of the future 
and shape the destiny of the nation, and they will 
be all the wiser and the better mothers and Church 
members and citizens for what they are doing." 

Some of her little friends were quite young. 
There was Dorothy, for instance, who was only five. 
She sent out Ma a picture-book which she had 
made herself, and Ma wrote back saying, "I wish 
I could give you a kiss and say 'Thank you' to your 
very real self by my very real self, instead of send- 
ing you a mere message on paper. But you see I 
cannot fly over the sea, and you can't come here, 
so what better can we do?" 

The letters from home Ma kept, along with other 
treasures, in an old chest of drawers that she loved 
because it had been her mother's. If the bairns 
had been extra good she would gather them about 
her there after the lamp was lit, and show them 
everything. The letters were read over and over, 
and the children knew all about Dorothy's doll that 
could speak and sleep, and Jim's rocking-horse which 
Santa Claus had brought, and the new little brother 
that had come to Mary's home. Then the photo- 
graphs of Dorothy, and Fay and her brother, and 
Christine and Happy, and others would be spread 
out and talked about and admired again. There 
were also the little gifts sent to her, just trifles, but 
very precious to her, because some bairn at home 



196 THE WHITE QUEEN OF OKOYONG 

had worked at them. "To think of the trouble 
they took," she would say. 

And the heather! How Ma loved it! These 
dry bits of plants brought tears to her eyes and sent 
her thoughts away across the wide sea to the home- 
land, and she saw in vision the glint of the sun, and 
the shadow of the cloud on the purple moors, and 
felt the scent of the heather and the tang of the 
salt sea breeze, and heard again the cry of the 
whaup. 

"That's the Bonkle heather," she would say; "oh, 
the kind hearts there." "And that's the Blairgowrie 
heather and bog myrtle ; never a year but it comes, 
and it is like a call across the sea." 

One package she opened very tenderly, for it 
held the wee toys and well-worn books of a little 
boy who had died. They had been sent out to her 
from the heart-broken mother. Ma could never 
look at this beautiful gift without her eyes growing 
misty with tears. 

In another corner was a cupboard filled with 
china and coloured glass, very common, but very 
rare in Ma's eyes, because they were gifts bought 
by the bairns at market or factory with their odd 
pennies and shyly offered to her. She often scolded 
them well for wasting their money in such a way, 
but all the same she was proud of these tokens of 
their love. 

Then, softened by sweet memories and kind feel- 



THE WHITE QUEEN OF OKOYONG 197 

ings, the family went to evening prayers. The chil- 
dren, squatting on the floor, read verses round, and 
Ma talked to them simply about higher things, some- 
times in Scots, sometimes in Efik, after which they 
would sing old psalms or hymns, like "Now Israel 
may say," which was one of Ma's favourites. No 
books were used, and woe betide the bairn or visi- 
tor who did not know the beginning of the next 
verse! Ma, however, liked the children to learn 
new hymns, and sometimes they could be heard 
singing the tuneful ones in the yard or away in the 
bush or on the road. 




Mask used in Native Plays. 




Ma's Last Voyage. 



CHAPTER XI 

What happened when the Great War broke out. Ma's last 

voyage down the Creek; how her life-long dream came 

true. Now she lies at rest, and dreams no more, but her 

work goes on. 

The house at Odoro Ikpe was nearly finished. It 
was August 1 9 14, and strange stories were being 
whispered among the natives of a great war in the 
world of white men beyond the seas. Ma knew 
how swiftly news travels in Africa, and became 
anxious but did not show it, and went calmly about 
her duties. The people grew more and more restless 
and excited, food became dearer, and no lamp oil 
could be had. She had to read at night by the light 
of a wood fire. 

One day she was sitting in the new house when 
the mail boy came running up with letters. She 
took the packet and read of the invasion of Belgium 
by the Germans, with all the horrors of that terrible 
time, the coming of Britain into the struggle on the 
198 



THE WHITE QUEEN OF OKOYONG 199 

side of right and justice and freedom. "Thank 
God," she cried, "we are not to blame." 

But the dreadful news shocked and hurt her so 
much that she became ill and could not rise. The 
girls carried her over to the rest-house and put her 
into her camp-bed, and for many days she was in 
a raging fever. At last, worn out, she lay in a 
stupor. Round her stood the house girls and some 
of the lads of the Mission weeping bitterly. What 
should they do? They felt they must not let their 
beloved Ma die alone so far away from her own 
people. They must take her to Use. 

So they lifted her in the camp-bed and set out 
for Ikpe, carrying her gently over the streams and 
up and down the hills. Next morning they put the 
bed into the canoe and covered up the shrunken 
form and the thin withered face. The yellow cat 
was also put beside her, but the bag slipped open, 
and it was so frightened that it rushed into the 
bush and disappeared. It could not be found, and 
there was not time to wait, for a long journey lay 
ahead, and so it was lost and never seen again. 

All day the lads paddled down the beautiful 
Creek among the water-lilies, and at night they took 
her ashore at the landing-beach, and she lay in the 
white moonlight until medicine was got and given 
to her, and then they carried her over the three 
miles to Use. Thus she came to the only home 
she had, never to leave it again. 



200 THE WHITE QUEEN OF OKOYONG 

She became a little better, and was able to get 
up and move about, but all the old righting spirit 
had gone, and she was very tender and gentle and 
sweet. The War troubled her, and she was always 
thinking of our brave soldiers in the trenches and 
praying for them. But she felt she could do nothing, 
and was content to leave everything with God. To 
a little boy and girl at home she said, "God will 
work out big things from the War, for there is no 
waste with Him." And to Christine she wrote, 
"Every blessing be yours in the year that comes. 
Though it opens in gloom there is Light on ahead." 

Yes, for her, too, there was Light ahead. One 
night she lay dying in her mud-room with its cement 
floor and iron roof. Miss Peacock was with her and 
the girls, Janie, Annie, Maggie, Alice, and Whitie. 
Alice never left her, and slept on a mat beside her 
bed. Through the long hours they kept watch. Ma 
was restless and very, very tired, and sometimes 
begged God to take her home. Once a cock crew, 
and they drew aside the blind thinking it was day, 
but there was nothing but darkness. Just before 
dawn Ma's wearied spirit passed softly into the Un- 
seen. The dream she had dreamed so long, that 
she might see her mother and sisters and brothers 
again, had also at last come true. But the people 
wept, saying, "Adiaha Makara is dead. What 
shall we do? How shall we live? Our Mother is 
dead!" 



THE WHITE QUEEN OF OKOYONG 201 

Once more she voyaged down the Cross River to 
Duke Town, and there she was buried on the Mis- 
sion hill, all Calabar, young and old, turning out to 
line the streets and show their deep sorrow. At 
the head of the grave sat old Mammy Fuller, a 
coloured woman from Jamaica, a faithful servant of 
the Mission, who had welcomed Ma when she first 
arrived, a bright-eyed happy girl, thirty-nine years 
before, and had loved her ever since. Ma had been 
fond of her too, and said it was she who ought to 
have had the Royal Cross. 

"Do not cry," said Mammy to the women who 
began to wail. "Praise God from whom all bless- 
ings flow." 

There was sadness in many a little heart when 
the news went across the ocean that Ma was no 
more. Ratcliffe missed the letters that used to flash 
like rays of sunshine into his quiet life. What of 
that wonderful secret which he had kept so closely 
locked up in his heart? He was told that it was 
all right now, and that there would be no harm 
in telling what it was. It turned out to be very 
simple, like many bigger mysteries and secrets. Ma 
and he had agreed to pray every day that he might 
get better and be able to walk, and he was to be 
good and always do his best. 

Ratcliffe has never forgotten that compact he 
made with Ma, and he believes that she is loving 
him, and praying for him still, and that her prayers 



202 THE WHITE QUEEN OF OKOYONG 

will be answered. He is now in Liverpool attending 
a school, and can go about on crutches with greater 
ease — sometimes for two and three hours at a time. 
He can also use his tricycle better, and enjoys a 
three- or four-mile ride. 

Christine, too, mourned for the loving friend she 
had never seen, and as she remembered the black 
children left motherless and alone she felt their sor- 
row and cried their cry, and put it all into the music 
of a haunting lament, a beautiful poem, which 
begins : 

She who loved us, she who sought us 
Through the wild untrodden bushlands, 
Brought us healing, brought us comfort, 
Brought the sunlight to our darkness, 
She has gone — the dear white Mother — 
Gone into the great Hereafter. 

Ma's death made her famous. She, who was al- 
ways hiding herself in life, was written and talked 
about and praised everywhere. The story of her 
heroism, devotion, and faith made her known and 
admired in many homes throughout the world, and 
so, although she lies in a far-off tropical land with 
her hands folded in rest and her lips quiet for ever, 
she is still helping and inspiring boys and girls and 
older people as she did of old. 

She was a puzzling person in many ways. Per- 
haps her dear friend, Mr. Macgregor, describes her 
best when he says, "She was a whirlwind and an 



THE WHITE QUEEN OF OKOYONG 203 

earthquake and a fire and a still small voice, all in 
one." But what girls and boys should remember 
is that she was, from her childhood, a dreamer of 
dreams. Not day-dreams which fade away into 
nothing. Not dreams of the night which are soon 
forgotten. But the kind of dreams which grown-up 
people sometimes call ideals, dreams that have in 
them the purpose of doing away with all that is 
evil and ugly, and making the world happier. 

Many boys and girls dream dreams, but they do 
nothing more. Their dreams are like the clouds 
that drift across the summer sky and disappear. 
Miss Slessor would never have done anything if she 
had only imagined all her dreams. If a boy only 
longs to be a good cricketer or swimmer, he will 
never become one. If a girl only thinks about a 
prize at school, she will not gain it. If a sculptor 
or artist only dreams about a beautiful statue or 
painting, the world will never have the joy of seeing 
them. We have to set to work and make what we 
dream about a real and solid thing. 

That is what the White Queen always did. Her 
dreams came true because she prayed hard and 
toiled hard and waited hard and loved hard, yes, 
and laughed hard, for faith and toil and patience 
and sympathy and humour are all needed to win 
success. 

There was only one of her ideas which did not 
come to pass — her home for women and girls ; and 



204< THE WHITE QUEEN OF OKOYONG 

that would have come true also if she had lived a 
little longer, for it was taking hold of the Church, 
and money was coming in for it. It was like a bit 
of weaving which she had not time to complete. 
Now, young and old, who loved and admired her 
inside her own Church and elsewhere, have taken 
up the threads and are finishing it and making it 
a lasting memorial of her. A number of native 
buildings and a Mission House are being built, and 
there, under the clever guidance of her old comrade 
Miss Young (now Mrs. Arnot), young lives will be 
trained in all the things that make girlhood and 
womanhood useful and pure and happy. And there, 
too, will be a beautiful gateway where tired men 
and woman and children travelling along the hot 
roadway may take shelter from the sun, and rest, 
and find water to quench their thirst, and think, 
perhaps, of the Great White Mother who spent her 
life for their good. 

The church at Ikpe built by Ma was destroyed 
by a falling palm tree; the house on the hill-top 
at Odoro Ikpe was blown down by a tornado, and 
part of the roof carried away into the valley; but 
her work goes on. Many of the young men she 
taught are now members of the Church ; the services 
in all the towns are crowded ; the schools are full of 
scholars, and others are being built. "All around," 
says the Rev. John Rankin, of Arochuku, who looks 
after them, "there is a desire for schools, but the 



THE WHITE QUEEN OF OKOYONG 205 

want of workers hinders more being done. We need 
a white missionary in the district." 

Who is going to follow in Ma's footsteps, here 
and elsewhere? 

She herself believed that it would be the young 
people of to-day. "I am glad to know," she said, 
"that the girls and boys are thinking of us and pray- 
ing for us, and denying themselves and planning 
perhaps to come to our help." 

Yes, the future of Africa, and, indeed, of the 
whole world of heathenism, lies with the young 
hearts who are now dreaming dreams of what they 
are going to do in the days to come. They will, 
by and by, be the pioneers and workers in the dark 
lands across the seas. It is to them that Jesus is 
looking to bring about the time when the whole earth 
will be filled with His light and love and peace. 

Every one, of course, cannot work in the Mission 
field, and you do not require to go there to be a 
missionary. Wherever you may be, whatever you 
may do, you can always be a missionary and fight 
as valiantly as Miss Slessor did against sin and 
wrong-doing. You may not find your task easy. 
Our heroine did not find hers easy. You may meet 
as many difficulties as Christian did on his pilgrim 
way, and your dreams may be laughed at and 
scorned, but if you trust Jesus and persevere, you 
will come out all right in the end. 

Dream your dreams then, boys and girls, brave 



206 THE WHITE QUEEN OF OKOYONG 

ones, lovely ones, but as you grow up be sure and 
do your best to turn them into realities, for it is 
only those that come true that are making life 
better and sweeter and shaping the world into 
beauty. 




Dan. 



INDEX 



Adam, Miss, in 

Akpap, 1 08 

Alice, no, 129, 181, 200 

Anderson, Mr. and Mrs., 25, 26, 

27 
Annie, 53, 99, 130, 176, 181, 

200 
Arnot, Mrs. (Miss Young), 154, 

204 
Arochuku, 123, 126, 135, 146 
Aros, 122 

Bowes, Mr., 192 
Box from home, 102 

Chapman, Mr., 140 

Cook, Miss, 172 

Court at Ekenge, 88; at Akpap, 

117, 139; at Ikotobong, 148 
Creek Town, 42, 95 

Dan, 130, 153, 181, 206 
David Williamson, the, 101 
Diary, extracts from, 186 
Duke Town, 25 

Edem, chief of Ekenge, 54, 59, 
60, 71, 76, 79, 93, (death) 109 

Edisbury, Mr. and Mrs., 173 

Egbo, 33, 34, 76 

Egerton, Sir W., 157 

Ekenge, 49, 84 

Erne Ete, 55, 75, 77, 85, 93.99. 
(death) 178 

Enyong Creek, 120, 127, 134, 
164 

Esere bean, 73, 77 

Esien, 127 



Fuller, Mammy, 201 

Goldie, Mr. and Mrs., letter to 

grand-niece, 193 
Gray, Happy, in, 195 

Hippos, 23, 125, 165, 167 

Hogg, Miss, 40 

Home for women and children, 

160, 204 
Hope-Waddell Institution, 84 

Ibibio, 122 
Ikotobong, 144 
Ikpe, 162, 165, 204 
Itu, 127 
lye, 94, 96 

Janie, 32, 39, 40, 42, 53, 83, 96, 
98, 102, 106, in, (portrait) 
119, 129, 153, 176, 177, 200 

Janie (sister), 41, 42 

King Eyo, 35. 45. 47, 51, 67, 
100 

Leopards, 156, 161, (picture) 

162, 178 
Livingstone, Dr., 10, 19, 88 
Long juju, 123, 126 
Lugard, Sir F., 179 

M'Crindle, Mrs., in 
Macdonald, Sir C, 107 
Macgregor, Mr. and Mrs., 158, 

202 
Mamie (Robertson), 158 



207 



208 



INDEX 



Mana, 98, 127, 128 

Mary, 92, 98, in, 113, 129, 

Odoro Ikpe, 183, 204 

Oil ordeal, 58 

Okoyong, 46, 89, 118, 177 

Old Town, 31 

Onoyom, chief, 136, 141 

Orr, Christine G. M., 170, 

193, 195, 202 
Ovens, Mr., 68, 69, 108 

Peacock, Miss, 41, 158, 200 



92, 



Ratcliffe (Edisbury), 
192, 201 



i/3- 



Scott, Mrs., Bonkle, 153 
Silver Cross, award of, 180 
Slessor, Mary, baptism, 1; as a 
child, 5; conversion, 5; enters 
factory, 6; father's death, 9; 
study, n; teacher in Sunday 
School, 12; offers for Cala- 
bar, 20; leaves for Calabar, 
22; poem, 26; first furlough, 
29; at Old Town, 31; river 
journey, 35; second furlough, 
40; in Devonshire, 41; at 
Creek Town, 42; goes to 
Okoyong, 47; settles at 
Ekenge, 53; builds a hut, 63; 
and church, 65; third fur- 
lough, 83 ; Agent for the Gov- 
ernment, 88; care of children, 



90; removes to Akpap, 108; 
fourth furlough, no; adven- 
ture with hippo, 125; visits 
Itu, 127; at Arochuku, 134; 
settles at Itu, 140; rides a bi- 
cycle, 144; at Ikotobong, 144; 
made Vice-President of Na- 
tive Court, 147; fifth furlough, 
153; goes to Ikpe, 164; visit 
to Canary Islands, 172; revis- 
its Okoyong, 177; awarded 
Royal Medal, 180; at Odoro 
Ikpe, 183; illness and death, 
199 

Slessor, Mr., 2, 4, 6, 8 

Slessor, Mrs., 2, 3, 6, 8, 10, 18, 
20, 39, 42 

Smallpox, 109 

Susie, 95 

Thomson, Mr., his scheme, 23, 

152 
Twins, 28, 32, 43, 93, 94, 96, 98 

Use, 140, 152, 156, 161, 167, 199 

War, the, 198 

Whitie, 130, 200 

Wilkie, Mr. and Mrs., 158 

Wilson, Miss Bessie, 41 

Wishart Church, (picture) 2, 12 

Wright, Miss, 41, 129, 133 

Young, Miss (Mrs. Arnot), 154, 
204 



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